THE OKLAHOMA
DUSTBOWL
Presented by Omer ,Francesco and Leo
What was the Oklahoma dustbowl
Francesco
◦ The Oklahoma Dust Bowl was the name given to the Southern regions of the
United States, which suffered severe dust storms and deadly drouts.
◦ As the strong winds and choking dust swept the region from Texas to
Nebraska, people and livestock were killed and crops failed across the entire
region.
◦ The Dust Bowl worsened the impacts of the Great depression and drove many
farming families in a desperate need for food and were in search of work and
better living conditions.
Images
What caused the Oklahoma Dust
Bowl? Francesco
◦ The Oklahoma dust bowl was caused by many different things most of them
were man made mistakes such as:
◦ Settlers brought their old farming techniques with them when they migrated
to the once fertile and full of fine soil land. Once they arrived and settled the
farmers damaged the land with wrongly used techniques and overfarming.
◦ As the dust bowl grew in size and in power it affected over one hundred
million acres of the southern states including: Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas,
Colorado and New Mexico.
America before the Oklahoma
dustbowl
America during the Oklahoma
dustbowl Francesco
◦ In some parts of America the dust drifted like snow, covering farm buildings
and houses.
◦ Nineteen states in the heart of the United States became a dust bowl. With no
chance of making a living, farm families abandoned their homes and land,
fleeing to the west to become foreign laborers.
◦ During the height of the dust bowl 250,000 teenagers were traveling around
America by cargo trains and some on foot.
Work during the Oklahoma dust bowl
Francesco
◦ In the 1930s work was extremely scares and many men, most of them under
the age of 18 worked throughout America to provide for their family.
◦ Men would work day and night where ever they could for example:
◦ Farms and Ranches: During extreme drought in southern parts of
America farms and ranches would be very hard to maintain because of the
lack of water and food.
◦ Factories: After the height of the industrial revolution many factories had
grown much bigger and factories did not require many things such as
water and food.
How the Oklahoma dustbowl
affected America
Leander
◦ The Oklahoma dustbowl was a huge part of American history marking the start of a huge
economical crash.
◦ As you know the Oklahoma dustbowl is a drought that mostly affected Oklahoma the
farming center of America so when the drought hit, most of America had to either be rich or
eat canned food and ration food among their family.
◦ During the great depression, the unemployment rate in all of America went from 8.7 in 1930
to 23.6 in 1932 that’s 14.9 percent in only 2 years and even after 1932 employment rates
didn’t go back down to 14.7 percent again till 1942
◦ I will be going into detail about all of these points on the next few slides