Assignment – Monoculture & The Dust Bowl
Draw/Color a story cartoon which describes your life in Western Kansas during the 1930’s during the
Dust Bowl era. You must fill the entire booklet including the back and front cover. Each page in the
booklet must have a picture of some kind and a caption. See example below for what I mean by a
picture and a caption.
You must use the information in the paragraphs below (and in the song on the
next page) when you draw/write your story cartoon.
The Dust Bowl was the name given to the Great Plains region devastated by drought in 1930s
depression-ridden America. The 150,000-square-mile area, encompassing the Oklahoma and Texas
panhandles and neighboring sections of Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico, has little rainfall, light
soil, and high winds, a potentially destructive combination. When drought struck from 1934 to 1937,
the soil lacked the stronger root system of grass as an anchor, so the winds easily picked up the
loose topsoil and swirled it into dense dust clouds, called "black blizzards." Recurrent dust storms
wreaked havoc, choking cattle and pasture lands and driving 60 percent of the population from the
region. Most of these "exodusters" went to other agricultural areas first and then to cities, especially in
the Far West.
For eight years dust blew on the southern plains. It came in a yellowish-brown haze from the South
and in rolling walls of black from the North. The simplest acts of life — breathing, eating a meal,
taking a walk — were no longer simple. Children wore dust masks to and from school, women hung
wet sheets over windows in a futile attempt to stop the dirt, farmers watched helplessly as their crops
blew away. The Dust Bowl of the 1930s lasted about a decade. Its primary area of impact was on the
southern Plains. The northern Plains were not so badly affected, but nonetheless, the drought,
windblown dust and agricultural decline were no strangers to the north. In fact the agricultural
devastation helped to lengthen the Depression whose effects were felt worldwide. The movement of
people on the Plains was also profound.
Poor agricultural practices and years of sustained drought caused the Dust Bowl. Plains grasslands
had been deeply plowed and planted with corn and wheat. During the years when there was
adequate rainfall, the land produced bountiful crops. But as the droughts of the early 1930s
deepened, the farmers kept plowing and planting and nothing would grow. The ground cover that held
the soil in place was gone. The Plains winds whipped across the fields raising billowing clouds of dust
to the skies. The skies could darken for days, and even the most well sealed homes could have a
thick layer of dust on furniture. In some places the dust would drift like snow, covering farmsteads.
Dust Bowl Blues
Words and Music by Woody Guthrie
I just blowed in, and I got them dust bowl blues,
I just blowed in, and I got them dust bowl blues,
I just blowed in, and I'll blow back out again.
I guess you've heard about ev'ry kind of blues,
I guess you've heard about ev'ry kind of blues,
But when the dust gets high, you can't even see the sky.
I've seen the dust so black that I couldn't see a thing,
I've seen the dust so black that I couldn't see a thing,
And the wind so cold, boy, it nearly cut your water off.
I seen the wind so high that it blowed my fences down,
I've seen the wind so high that it blowed my fences down,
Buried my tractor six feet underground.
Well, it turned my farm into a pile of sand,
Yes, it turned my farm into a pile of sand,
I had to hit that road with a bottle in my hand.
I spent ten years down in that old dust bowl,
I spent ten years down in that old dust bowl,
When you get that dust pneumony, boy, it's time to go.
I had a gal, and she was young and sweet,
I had a gal, and she was young and sweet,
But a dust storm buried her sixteen hundred feet.
She was a good gal, long, tall and stout,
Yes, she was a good gal, long, tall and stout,
I had to get a steam shovel just to dig my darlin' out.
These dusty blues are the dustiest ones I know,
These dusty blues are the dustiest ones I know,
Buried head over heels in the black old dust,
I had to pack up and go.
An' I just blowed in, an' I'll soon blow out again.