The History of The Dust Bowl In America

Not many people are familiar with the Dust Bowl, mainly because it was overshadowed and blended in with The Great Depression. However, make no mistake about it, the Dust Bowl had a massive effect on the United States and was even a major factor that lead to The Great Depression. If you want to learn more about this environmental plague, check out this gallery to find out all you need to know about it. The Dust Bowl was caused by humans In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there was intensive farming on the Great Plains in order to meet the demands of a growing population. However, the farming techniques used were not particularly sustainable. The land was overcultivated with heavy use of tractors and as a result, the topsoil was loosened. When a severe drought hit the Great Plains during the 1930s, that topsoil was picked up by winds, causing the dust storms that gave the Dust Bowl its name. The Dust Bowl era was also known as the “Dirty Thirties” The 1930s were a decade that does not usually inspire happy thoughts for most people. The Great Depression caused as much as 25% of industrial workers in the United States to become unemployed. The Great Depression also led to global trade grinding to a halt, which made it last even longer. The economic effects of the Great Depression also had political effects, leading to the rise of fascism. The Dust Bowl that coincided with the Great Depression also was known as the “Dirty Thirties”. A reporter coined the term “Dust Bowl” Not surprisingly, the Dust Bowl was a media event that attracted journalists from all over the United States to cover the dust storms in the Great Plains. On April 14, 1935, Robert Geiger, a reporter for the Associated Press, was in Boise City, Oklahoma. There he witnessed the black dust storms that had plagued the Great Plains. He described these storms as a dust bowl in the middle of North America. The name was also adopted by other news organizations and had entered the history books. The Dust Bowl happened at the same time as the Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe economic slowdown that was precipitated by the Stock Market Crash in 1929. In the months and years that followed, the economy shrank, since there was little demand for consumer products, resulting in massive unemployment, not just in the United States but throughout the world. This was the same time as the Dust Bowl when a severe drought caused catastrophic dust storms in the Great Plains, which displaced hundreds of thousands of people in the United States. Californians were afraid of immigrants The Dust Bowl led to massive migration from the states like Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arkansas. In just one year, more than 86,000 people entered California. During the 1930s, around 116,000 families moved into California, and that prompted anti-immigration fears among Californians. In reaction to the mass exodus of people displaced by the Dust Storm, the authorities blocked roads leading to California. When fires broke out in migrant camps, they were also reported to the police. People killed snakes to fight drought The severity of the droughts and dust storms drove some farmers to desperation. They resorted to methods that did not exactly meet the definition of the scientific method. One way people found to fight the drought was to catch a snake. After catching the snake, they would kill it and hang it by its belly. The belief was that hanging a snake on a fence post on its belly would lead to rain the next day, the drought lasted eight years. A cow was $1 The Dust Bowl was part of a larger phenomenon in American history, known as the Great Depression. During the 1930s, there was a severe economic slowdown, resulting in massive unemployment. Since millions of people were unemployed, they often did not have money for food. In the Great Plains, a prolonged drought meant that there was little food. To try to remedy the effects of both the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, the federal government purchased crops and livestock from severely impacted families, which included buying the family cow for $1 in order to feed other starving families. Schools had to be closed The Dust Bowl affected just about every part of life in the Great Plains. Not only was there a prolonged drought, which led to topsoil being blown away causing gigantic dust storms, but human activity was also disrupted. Schools had to be shut down because of the dust storms, making it very dangerous for schoolchildren to walk to school. The dust storms destroyed many school buildings, which meant that students had to be transferred to the remaining schools, adding to their families’ hardships. There was a plague of rabbits Normally, one doesn’t consider rabbits to be an existential threat. Because of the prolonged drought and the dust storms, much of the crops in the Midwest were destroyed. However, a few acres' worths of crops remained. That produced another problem because jackrabbits started eating much of the surviving crops. By 1935, there were 8 million jackrabbits reported in 30 counties in Kansas, alone. This prompted farmers to organize into groups to cull the millions of jackrabbits that had overrun remaining farmland. Local counties paid bounties for each jackrabbit killed. Millions of people were displaced by the Dust Bowl The Dust Bowl created one of the worst humanitarian disasters in American history. The Dust Bowl affected more than 2.5 million acres throughout the Great Plains during the 1930s. This resulted in a mass displacement of people from their homes to other parts of the country. More than 2.5 million people left their homes, farms, and businesses because life had become untenable. Many of them went to California in search of better economic opportunities. This exodus of people was recorded, not just in newspapers, but also in literature with novels like The Grapes of Wrath. Paper was brought up as a solution to the Dust Bowl The unprecedented nature of the Dust Bowl prompted people to come up with unorthodox ideas in order to solve the problems caused by the Dust Bowl. One solution was to cover millions of acres of farmland with waterproof paper. The theory was that waterproof paper contains PVC (polyvinylchloride). PVC would then conserve water and prevent it from being evaporated, which could potentially save crops. Not surprisingly, paper companies made this proposal, not out of pure altruism, but as an opportunity to receive contracts from the federal government. The Dust Bowl returned in the 1950s The drought that caused the Dust Bowl of the 1930s ended when the rains returned in 1940. There was also hope that new methods in agriculture would prevent the mistakes from recurring. However, during the 1950s, another drought affected the Great Plains. Between 1950 and 1956, a wide area ranging from the Southwest to Oklahoma, Texas, and Nebraska was affected by drought. Similar conditions returned, as the winds picked up loose topsoil and became part of the dust storms, and dust had to be swept from the streets. Pavement was proposed as a solution to the Dust Bowl Another example of out-of-the-box thinking during the 1930s was to pave over the Great Plains. The reasoning was that pavement would prevent topsoil from being blown away, causing dust storms. Additionally, by paving over the Great Plains, water would also be conserved by preventing evaporation. This was proposed by the Barber Asphalt Company in New Jersey, hoping to receive a contract from the federal government, charging five dollars per acre to pave over one hundred million acres of the entire Great Plains. California became a major destination The Dust Bowl prompted one of the greatest mass migrations within the United States. About 2.5 million people left the Great Plains during the Dust Bowl. About 300,000 of them came to California for better opportunities like working in the fields of the Central Valley. The story of the Joad family who left Oklahoma for California in The Grapes of Wrath was based on similar journeys during the 1930s, as well as the reactions of Californians to the “Okies” who were dwelling among them. Planting trees was one of the solutions for the Dust Bowl After much study by the Soil Conservation Service, it was concluded that soil erosion due to decades of unsustainable farming techniques was the cause of the storms, which led to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. The goal, then, was to prevent topsoil from being picked up by the wind in the future. Under the Shelterbelt Project, trees would be planted to prevent wind erosion of the soil. The Shelterbelt Project started in 1935 and resulted in the planting of more than 220,000 trees along 18,600 square miles. The Dust Bowl was a major blow to the US economy While we often think of the Dust Bowl in geological or human terms, its effects can also be measured in economic terms. The Dust Bowl added to the economic misery of the Great Depression, which already wreaked havoc, in terms of industrial unemployment. Additionally, because of the prolonged drought and the subsequent dust storms that destroyed farmland, farmers had no crops to sell to the market. That resulted in a loss of $25 million per day, which would be about $440 million in today’s money. Dryland farming contributed to the Dust Bowl During the decades before the Great Depression, farmers in the Great Plains adopted the technique of dryland farming to adapt to the dry weather and low precipitation. Dryland farming is a type of farming that taps into the moisture in the soil, particularly in places that have as little as 230 milliliters of rain per year. Not all migrants from the Dust Bowl came from Oklahoma Even with the human misery caused by the Dust Bowl, people still made time for xenophobia and stigmatization. When people started arriving in California from the Great Plains, they were given the blanket name of “Okies”, on the assumption that they came from Oklahoma and were migrant farmers. However, the reality was that only 20% of migrants came from Oklahoma. Nevertheless, the name stuck and applied to anyone from the Great Plains. Local eating establishments put out signs saying that “Okies” and dogs were not welcome. Route 66 was a way out of the Dust Bowl It was during the Great Depression that Route 66 was seared into the nation’s consciousness. Route 66 served as the route that families took to leave their drought-stricken states. Built in 1926, Route 66 starts in Chicago Illinois, then runs 2,448 miles through Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and ends in Santa Monica, California. For many families, it symbolized hope for a better life when they reached California. After 1956, Route 66 gradually fell to disuse after the creation of the interstate highway system. Dorothea Lange’s photographs made the Dust Bowl real to Americans During the 1930s, the federal government sent people to quantify the effects of the Great Depression and to see the ways people were affected, that cannot just be told by statistics. Dorothea Lange was a photographer hired by the Farm Security Administration to document the effects of the Great Depression in film. She went out and took photographs of those most affected by the Dust Bowl, such as migrant farmers, women, and children. Those photographs have become part of the history of the United States. Demand for wheat contributed to the Dust Bowl During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there was a great demand for wheat in Europe. The federal government encouraged settlers to move to Oklahoma with the promise of 640 acres of farmland. Because of the demand for wheat, prices soared, encouraging farmers to plant more wheat. However, in the rush to meet global demands, farmers drained moisture from the soil, which made the topsoil loose. When the drought of the 1930s came, that topsoil was blown away creating dust storms and the Dust Bowl. World War I contributed to the Dust Bowl In the early 20th century, American farmers met the demand for wheat in Europe. That was due to the fact that World War I and the Russian Revolution were raging, meaning that only the United States could provide the wheat necessary since the countries at war could not export their wheat. After Turkey had cut off the wheat trade from Russia, the price of wheat rose. By the 1930s, there was an overproduction of wheat, which meant that the price of wheat fell, leaving farmers unable to earn a living. The loss of grassland contributed to the Dust Bowl In the early twentieth century, as industrial-scale farming was taking root, farmers drastically altered the ecological balance of the Great Plains. To clear ground for farming, farmers took out the deep-rooted grass that had been indigenous to the Great Plains, loosening the soil. To meet worldwide demands, farmers planted three times more wheat by 1929 than in 1920. By the end of the 1920s, about 5.3 million acres of grassland turned into farmland, an area seven times the size of Rhode Island. Soil has different colors based on their origin The Dust Bowl created opportunities to expand scientific knowledge. Since there was so much dust being blown around, geologists and other scientists were collecting data on the origin of the soil. They were able to tell where the soil came from based on its color. For example, black soil came from Kansas, red soil came from Oklahoma, and gray soil came from Texas and New Mexico. This data later helped scientists in coming up with solutions to prevent future Dust Bowls. The 1930s produced some depressing facts It is often said that economics is the “dismal science”. The Great Depression and the Dust Bowl have data that are not exactly cheerful. For example, during the 1930s, 250,000 boys and girls became homeless and wandered the country as hobos, one-third of farms were in foreclosure, and around 9,000 banks failed during the Depression. Also in 1932, at the worst of the depression, 1 out of 4 workers was unemployed, in Toledo, Ohio, 4 out of 5 workers had no jobs, and in 1933, 90% of the chickens in a Texas county died because of the dust storms. The farmers from the Great Depression worked for very low wages Today in our more comfortable society, it is not always easy to understand the difficulties that farmers endured during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl era. For example, grape pickers in California worked sixteen hours per day, seven days a week for $4. Children also worked in the fields for less. The Works Progress Administration paid 18 cents an hour and the Civilian Conservation Corps paid 20 cents an hour, which is an improvement. Horses also were paid $1 per day. The Dust Bowl inspired some interesting math The Dust Bowl led to a lot of interesting calculations, to get an idea of the magnitude of the dust particles blown around during the 1930s, a Kansas State University Professor did some calculating. He concluded that it would take a line of trucks 96 miles long hauling 10 full loads a day, one year to transport the soil that had flown from one end of Kansas to another. In all, it would take about 46 million truckloads of dirt. People still had not learned their lesson from the 1930s One would think that after such a traumatic and defining moment in American history as the Dust Bowl, that people would have learned their lesson and use more ecologically sustainable ways of farming. Despite the efforts of the federal government of planting 220 million trees to preserve farmland, by the 1940s, farmers went back to their old ways to meet high demands for wheat due to World War II. That meant cutting down the shelterbelt trees meant to stop the dust storms. Crops and farm animals had to be destroyed as ordered by the federal government During the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt, he created the New Deal, which tackled the Depression in counterintuitive ways. One way to approach the Depression was by creating “planned scarcity”. The idea was that since overproduction led to the drop in farm prices, fewer agricultural products on the market would raise prices, allowing farmers to earn a living. Farmers destroyed millions of acres of crops and around 6 million baby pigs and 200,000 cows were culled. That did not provide a positive image in the Dust Bowl states. Big cities were also affected by the Dust Bowl The Dust Bowl did not just affect farmers in the Great Plains. Metropolitan areas were also affected because of the soil carried by the dust storms. During the 1930s, 350 million tons of soil left Kansas, Texas, and Oklahoma and were blown east.