In the 1930’s, the Dust Bowl caused huge damage to the Great Plains region of the United States. It was an extreme dust storms which swept across the Southern Great Plains area. At the same time, people suffered by a long term drought. The soil was very dry and winds carried off topsoil. Although people tried to stay and live their homeland, many people decided that they cannot do farm work and live their land. Especially, farmers were directly affected. They blame the wind for their agricultural and economic losses. As shown on Doc 7, “perhaps it is only because the dust is too dense and blinding” the farmers are focused on all the losses caused by the heavy winds. Before they left their land, for few years, they stayed and tried to re-establish …show more content…
The Committee laid a fault to the climate and asserted that the farmer had no control of climate changes. Document 3 shows what the Great Plains drought area committee asked to President Roosevelt on August 27, 1936. They explained how they suffered from Dust Bowl and what they want from the Federal government. They wanted the federal government provide leadership and guidance to a substantial extent in the construction or financing of the needed public works. The Dust Bowl is directly linked to the Depression, because both were caused at the same period so as part of “New Deal” programs, President Franklin D. Roosevelt started new programs to conserve soil and a restoration of ecological balance of affected area. In 1935, President Roosevelt dictated Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) to plant lots of trees near the Great Plains area to prevent from the dust storms. Also, the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) offered cash incentives to voluntarily limit farm production to raise the prices of agricultural because price of production will rise due to its decrease in supply. Furthermore, in June 1933, the National Recovery Administration (NRA) was set by the National Industrial Recovery Act. To coordinate prices and reduce the cutthroat competition, they suspended the antitrust laws. Another way, the government encouraged farmers to practice the new agriculture methods. These efforts saved the amount of soil and helped to start to farming in damaged
Timothy Egan called the Dust Bowl "the worst hard times As the nation was hit with its worst economic disaster, the country was hit with its worst ecological disaster as well. Over 300 dust storms or dusters hit the Southern Great Plains during the 1930s. The hardest hit areas were theOklahoma and Texas panhandles. The land became almost uninhabitable, and over two million people left their homes throughout the course of the dust bowl in search of a new life elsewhere. Many ended up nearly starved to death and homeless.
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
Dust Bowl, The Southern Plains in the 30’s written by Donald Worster and published in 1979, is an informative text on the Great Plains during the Great Depression. Donald Worster is a credible author because he not only earned a Ph.D. from Yale in environmental history, but he also had previously written a book on the environment and the economy. This book was written well and Worster did a good job of revealing how people and how they live have effected the areas environment. He spoke of places including, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas and many more.
In the 1930’s, our economy took a major downturn when the stock market crashed on Black Tuesday in October of 1929, which affected many Americans in every aspect, including a rise in the unemployment rate. This resulted in farmers migrating from Oklahoma to California, as we see in The Grapes of Wrath when Tod Joad and his family take on this journey. Although the Great Depression lasted between 1929 and 1939, the people had hope in the restoration of the economy when Roosevelt came into office in 1933. He proposed the New Plan guaranteeing security in the economy. Unfortunately, it was not much help with the onset of the Dust Bowl during these tragic times.
Donald Worster is an environmental historian and his book Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s helped to define the environmental history movement as it was the first environmental history book published. He breaks the stereotype of how the Dust Bowl was viewed by writing it from an environmental standpoint instead of writing a social history by focusing solely on the people and their experiences. How it helped to define the environmental history movement is that it opened up this avenue for others to write about environmental issues. He is also an anti-capitalist and this book combines his interest in the environment with the effect that capitalism has on the environment.
The law stated that personal districts could be set up by farmers to practice conservation of soil for a period of five years. The New Deal helped get this law established and is an organization still running today. The idea was to recognize new farming methods by the hands of farmers and not government people in Washington. (Teisch) Most people don’t even notice the many effects the Dust Bowl has on us in modern
The Dust Bowl were huge storms caused by all the eroding soil from the crops and the farming. Not only did it lead to physical devastation, but it also led to economic devastation. Almost 2.5 million Americans migrated from the dust bowl stats, and as a result the east became very populated. Finally the California Drought is the final final major event that impacted the many migrant workers. The drought is known as the “worst drought in in history,” or a “megadrought.”
Luckily Franklin D. Roosevelt attempted to shine some light with a new deal. The Dust Bowl was what they called the Great Depression in the drought stricken areas. The condition of the areas around Oklahoma and Texas made living dangerous and futile. “When drought struck
Eroding soil led to massive dust storms and economic devastation, especially in the Southern Plains. When the drought killed off the crops, high winds blew the remaining topsoil away. Parts of the Midwest has still not recovered even almost 80 years later! " When winds blew, they raised enormous clouds of dust. It deposited mounds of dirt on
The Dust Bowl was an economic event that happened in the Great Plains during the Great Depression in the 1930’s. The causes of the Dust Bowl was the dry farming technique, the drought, and high winds. The dry farming technique helped the farmers grow more food in the Great Plains because the land was somewhat dry. The drought made the soil loose, and turn into a powdery substance. The high winds started blowing in 1934, which carried the dirt through the air.
Evidence from Doc D, shows that over 100 million acres were harvested crops. How this was possible was advances in machinery. The tractor at the time was a new type of technology used to help farmers plant soil for crops. Since the soil was not watered because of the drought in the previous paragraph, this caused the soil to 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.
Thesist The Great depression was a miserable time. The droughts came and the stock market crashed so there was no way to make money and even the rich became poor Body In between 1932 and 1939 most farm lands were prone to these droughts but during this the soil could not take it anymore and became vulnerable during this time millions of acres of natural grass were sod to plant wheat during the years. In 1935 congress passed the soil conservation act, People started teaching others how to make soil less vulnerable to the water and wind erosion.
The worst man made ecological disaster in American history; The Dust Bowl. During The Great Depression, jobs, money, and food were scarce it forced the farmers to over work the soil because there was very little money and food them. So,they had to plant more crops to make ends met. But they did not realize that they were braking up the dirt creating the dust bowl.
“With the gales came the dust. Sometimes it was so thick that it completely hid the sun. Visibility ranged from nothing to fifty feet, the former when the eyes were filled with dirt which could not be avoided, even with goggles ”( Richardson 59). The Dust Bowl was a huge dust storm in the 1930s that stretched from western Kansas to New Mexico. People that lived in that area could not step outside or they would get dust in their lungs.