The Dust Bowl In Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird

The livestock was another group that was affected in the dust bowl. When the AAA demanded the farmers to plow over there land they killed 6 million young pigs were slaughtered. Many of those pigs just starved because the farmers were no longer working so they could not feed them. When the dust bowl came money farmers and ranchers livestock were killed and when they cut them open there was only dust in there lungs and guts. The cattle grazing was reduced and millions of more acres were plowed and planted.

These farmers tilled the land pulled up any remaining grass in the area only making the dust storms worse. During this time farming, there were a lot of struggles and difficulties for the families that were working the land. They had many hardships with the dust storms that was caused by fierce winds that would knock people and animals to the ground, making it impossible to breath and see causing the person to be lost as to which way they were headed and which way they came. In some instances the sandstorms go so bad it would even suffocate the animal or someones loved one. They also had difficulties with grasshoppers and rabbits that would add to crop failure and resulted in many losing so much money on the farms that some would quit and abandon their wheat

Devastation pervaded the decade of the 1930s, which left many people struggling with hardships. High unemployment and homelessness rate preceded the nation. This destruction became known as the Dust Bowl. During the Dust Bowl, high winds referred to as the black blizzards wreaked havoc on the land. A principal, infamous author, Donald Worster, demonstrates in his book, “Dust Bowl The Southern Plains in the 1930s” the living conditions and obstacles people had faced along with the various explanations for the Dust Bowl.

Prior to the occurrence of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, farmers had rows of crops because of the demand. Soon after, this all failed with the onset of the Dust Bowl. The drought and wind erosion that had occurred amongst the land in the southern Great Plains region of the United States is what led many farmers to be displaced. In the Grapes of Wrath by John Steinback, he gives us the harsh reality of what occurred during the era of the Dust Bowl and Great Depression. “And then the dispossessed were drawn west—from Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico; from Nevada and Arkansas families, tribes, dusted out, tractored out.

The failure to apply dry land farming was also a factor in these dust storms. These storms affected thousands of families, forcing them to leave their homes. Many of these families moved to California to learn that the Great Depression had left the economic conditions there, close to the same they had left. The people that didn't go to California found a place to hide or died from inhaling the dust. The majority that died from inhaling the dust were infants or teens.

The 120,000 square-mile area the Dust Bowl destroyed was Kansas, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma and Colorado. The Dust Bowl was a name given to the Great Plains region that was struck with a drought in the 1930’s. Before the Depression, many of the farmers in the Great Plains were over producing wheat due to the war. Farmers plowed more land and removed grass in order to make more room for their crops. Then the Depression hit and the demand for wheat decreased.

The Dust Bowl negatively affected people in an economic way. How Drought played a big role in The Dust Bowl “ Federal aid to the drought-affected states was first given in 1932, but the first funds marked specifically for drought relief were not released until the fall of 1933. In all, assistance may have reached $1 billion (in 1930s dollars) by the end of the drought (Warrick et al., 1980). “ ( Source - http://drought.unl.edu/DroughtBasics/DustBowl/EconomicsoftheDustBowl.aspx )

Dust Bowl and Economics of the 1930s The Dust Bowl was a very desperate and troublesome time for America. The southwestern territories were in turmoil due to the arid effect of the drought causing no fertile soils. As the rest of America was being dragged along with the stock market crash and higher prices of wheat and crops since the producing areas couldn't produce. This was a streak of bad luck for the Americans as they were in a deep despair for a quite some time.

The 1930s was a defining decade in America's history it was a test of the nation's strength and resulted in many changes, both good and bad. One of the many challenges America faced was the disastrous dust storms in the southern Great Plains. In the years before the dust storms began, farmers cleared the land of the grass in order to plant wheat when the drought came the wheat failed, resulting the Dust Bowl ("Dust Bowl 1931-1939" 3). These storms caused the greatest migration in U.S. history, with about 2.5 million farmers and their families leaving the plains ("Dust Bowl 1931-1939" 3). The Dust Bowl was an enormous struggle that resulted in many economic and agricultural problems that were going to be extremely strenuous to fix.

Also known as the dirty thirties, The dust bowl years were the years that dust storms greatly damaged thousands of homes, lives, and the economy. Originally the Dust Bowl was the name given from the Great Plains region, consumed by the so called drought in the 1930’s. Many who had gone through the Dust Bowl; pointed fingers at the dought, little did they know that The Dust Bowl originally was caused by heavy mechanism, and heavy mechanism came from farmers over doing farms. The Dust Bowl was held responsible for the dust storms in parts of Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico.

The first cause is the drought. So much land was being harvested on for crops. How this affects the Dust Bowl is since there was little rainfall for four years(Doc E), if soil isn’t watered it turns into dust after a while. A lot of land was being harvested on, and a lot of land with soil that isn’t watered can turn into dust.

It has been 76 years since the dust bowl had ended. The dust bowl swept across Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas throughout 1930-1940. Before the dust bowl many people traveled to these states for good land. The dust bowl was caused by a drought and strong winds. The dust from the drought was being blown around by the strong winds and covering everything.

After the livestock would graze and leave the land bare and open, then the wind would pick up the dust from the ground and that created the dust bowl. Another terrible add on, was there was no rain. The effect of the Dust Bowl has dreadful. Residents at the time would move to California and make a living there. However, some residents would stay.

As you can see, the dust bowl occurred due to the adverse impact of over-farming methods on the environment combined with mother nature

Livestock could not breath or find food sources. Thousands of people lost their homes due to the storm. Changes in farming and agriculture in the early 1900s altered the landscape and soil creating the perfect environment for the Dust Bowl and impacted living conditions and economic policy. First, changes in farming and agriculture over the years led to the conditions that caused the Dust Bowl and impacted the Great Plains. “Wind and drought alone did not create the Dust Bowl.