A. The Dust Bowl

The Dust Bowl, or the Dirty Thirties,
was a period of severe dust storms
which were caused by major
ecological and agricultural damage to
American and Canadian prairie lands
in the 1930s (primarily 1934-1936).
Farmer and sons in Cimarron County


“And then the dispossessed were drawn
west – from Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas,
New Mexico; from Nevada and Arkansas,
families, tribes, dusted out, tractored out.
Car-loads, caravans, homeless and
hungry; twenty thousand and fifty
thousand and a hundred thousand and
two hundred thousand.

They streamed over the mountains,
hungry and restless – restless as ants,
scurrying to find work to do – to lift, to
push, to pull, to pick, to cut – anything,
any burden to bear, for food. The kids are
hungry. We got no place to live. Like
ants scurrying for work, for food, and
most of all for land.” -John Steinbeck, The
Grapes of Wrath
B. A Land of Promises?


When settlers were migrating across
the country, they were in search of
good farmland. They saw the vast
expanse of the prairie of the Midwest
as ideal. The grass that covered the
plains stood feet tall and stretched from
Canada to south Texas.


Homesteaders flocked to the grasslands
and were certain that this was the place to
settle down. This push by homesteaders
caused the Native Americans in Indian
Territory to lose more and more of their
land. Homesteaders cleared this land to
grow wheat and cut down trees to build
houses, barns, and outbuildings.

Mistake . . .

What they did not realize was that the
grass and trees on the plains essentially
nourished and held the soil in place. When
they were gone, the moisture that would
have gone to the roots ran off into creeks,
streams, and rivers. This basically carried
the land with it. Their mistake set the
scene for the Dust Bowl.
 there was a better
In 1930, no one thought
place for the farmer than the Southern
Plains. Men and women had turned the
untamed prairie into one of the most
prosperous regions in the whole country.
While other parts of the country struggled
with the onset of the Great Depression,
farmers in wheat country were reaping a
record-breaking crop.

With the onset of WWI, the demand
for wheat was almost unbelievable.
Farmers were earning record
breaking prices – farmers turned
every possible inch into wheat.
During WWI, millions upon millions
of bushels of wheat and corn fed
American as well as others overseas.


Farming practices = a toll on the land.
The grasslands had been deeply
plowed and planted; during the years
with adequate rainfall, the land
produced an abundance of crops.
However, when a drought started and
persisted, farmers continued to plow
and plant.

In 1930, Oklahoma and the Texas
Panhandle were known as the most
prosperous regions in the nation. For
plains farmers, the decade opened with
prosperity and growth; however, the
summer of 1931 would begin a very
difficult period that would last eight
years.

What was the problem? The
rain simply stopped.
C. From Cause to Effect


It had taken a thousand years for the
topsoil on the Southern Plains to build
up; however, it took minutes for it to
be swept away. Lakes levels dropped
by 5 feet or more and wind picked up
dry soil that had nothing to hold onto.
Great black clouds of dust blotted
out the sun. In some places, the
dust drifted like sun, darkening the

sky for days. These storms
engulfed entire towns.

One hundred million acres of the
Southern Plains were turning into a
wasteland of the Dust Bowl – Texas,
Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, New
Mexico
In 1932, 14 dust storms were
reported; in 1933, 38 were reported.


Dust soo thick – people scooped up
buckets full while cleaning house, exterior
doors were blocked, people had to climb
out windows and shovel the dust away
Changes? Farmers kept trying to plow. In
the Spring of 1934, a massive drought
affected more than 75% of the country.
The Dust Bowl was a result of the worst
drought in US History.

D. Survival

Many people were starving! Those
who could survived on cornbread,
beans, and milk. Many packed up

their belongings, piled them into cars
and moved westward. They fled from
the dust and desert of the Midwest for
Washington, Oregon, and California.
As a result of the largest migration in
American history (over 2 million
people), they were willing to work for
any wage at all.
 not well received.
These families were
There were already too many people
for jobs and many were out of work.
Many California farms were corporate
owned, making these farms larger and
more modern than the farms they
were used to. Families lived in tarpaper shacks with no floor or
plumbing


By 1934, cattle feed was seriously
depleted; that fall, the government
began buying and destroying
thousands of starving livestock.
Although gut wrenching, the cattle
slaughter helped many farmers
avoid bankruptcy
E. Efforts to Conserve

New Deals - The government began
to offer relief to farmers through the
New Deal. President Franklin D.
Roosevelt believed it was the
government’s duty to help the
American people get through the bad
times like the Dust Bowl.

During the first three months, a steady
stream of recovery bills were passed to
relieve poverty, reduce unemployment, and
speed the economic recovery. While it
would not fully end the Depression, it
helped the American people immeasurably
by taking care of their basic needs and
giving them the dignity of work and hope.
The Father of Soil Conservation,
Hugh Hammond Bennett, had been
leading a campaign to reform farming
practices well before
 Roosevelt
became president. In April 1935,
Bennett was on his way to testify
before a Congressional committee
about his campaign when he learned
about a dust storm blowing into the
capital. As the dust settled and
blotted out the sun, Bennett said,
“This, gentlemen, is what I have been
talking about.”
Soil Conservation Act of 1935. The
Roosevelt administration put their weight
behind improving farming techniques to
Bowl. The Civilian
prevent another Dust
Conservation Corps was ordered to plant a
huge belt of 200+ million trees from
Canada to Texas to break the wind, hold
water in the soil, and hold the soil in place.
The administration also began an
education campaign to educate farmers on
soil conservation and anti-erosion
techniques.
F. Relief

In the fall of 1939, the skies
opened! With the return of the
rain, dry fields soon yielded
another crop. The Dust Bowl
was, at last, over.