In what was one of the most fertile areas of the United States, one of the Nation’s worst agricultural disasters occurred. No rain came so crops did not grow, leaving the soil exposed to the high winds that hit the area in the 1930s. Stretching over a 150,000 square mile area and encompassing parts of five states—these being Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico—the Dust Bowl was a time where over 100 million acres of topsoil were stripped from fertile fields leaving nothing but barren lands and piles of dust everywhere (Ganzel). While things were done to alleviate the problem, one must question whether or not anyone has learned from this disaster. If not, one must look into the possibility that the United States may be struck by such a destructive drought as the Dust Bowl, if not a worse one that would leave us with mass famine and loss of our productive crop lands.
The rich dark soil of Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Kansas, and Colorado—an area also known as the Great Plains—formed from thousands of years of soil forming factors in action (Surviving the Dust Bowl). From the beginning of human populations living in the area, the soils, for the most part, remained untouched and unscathed by the plow. Thick prairie grasses covered the area and held the soils in the ground even during the periodic times of drought. This area of land was suitable for grazing practices and it was in this area that the large cattle ranches flourished. Little did the newly arrived farmers realize that this seemingly plentiful land followed a pattern of several years of rain followed by several years of drought and high winds.
Farmers were lured to the Great Plains by the promise of rich soils as dark as chocolate and the promise of bounty....
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Francis, Randol. "The Texas Dust Bowl In Historical Perspective: What Happened and Could It Happen Again?" The Dust Bowl. June 1998. Web. 26 Feb. 2011.
Ganzel, Bill. "The Dust Bowl of the 1930s." Farming in the 1930s. The Wessels Living History Farm, 2003. Web. 26 Feb. 2011.
Harris, Richard. "Dust Storms Threaten Snow Packs." NPR : National Public Radio. Public Broadcasting Service, 30 May 2006. Web. 26 Feb. 2011.
"Man Made Disasters Part 2: The Dust Bowl." Green Planet Ethics. 14 Nov. 2010. Web. 26 Feb. 2011.
Schmaltz, Jeff. "Dust Storm over Northern Texas." Earth Observatory. NASA, 27 Feb. 2007. Web. 26 Feb. 2011.
Surviving the Dust Bowl. Prod. Chana Gazit. WGBH: American Experience. Public Broadcasting Service. Web. 26 Feb. 2011.
Worster, Donald. "The Dust Bowl." The Handbook of Texas. Texas State Historical Association. Web. 26 Feb. 2011.
Professor R. Douglas Hurt is the Director of the Graduate Program in Agricultural History and Rural Studies at Iowa State University in Ames. Professor Hurt wrote the book, The Dust Bowl: An Agricultural and Social History, based on historical events and his opinion of the what caused the Dust Bowl.3 Professor Hurt
Egan notes, “No group of people took a more dramatic leap in lifestyle or prosperity, in such a short time, than wheat farmers on the Great Plains” (Egan 42). The revenue from selling wheat far exceeded the cost of producing the wheat, so the large profit attracted people to produce more and more wheat. On top of the high profit from wheat, the Great War caused the price of wheat to rise even more. The supply of wheat rose with the price, but Egan points to information to demonstrate that the rapid increase in production can lead to overproduction, which is damaging to the land. Also, the invention of the tractor also lead to overproduction of the land by creating the ability to dramatically cut the time it took to harvest acres. When the prices for wheat began to fall due to overproduction, this caused the farmers to produce even more output to be able to make the same earnings as when the prices were higher. The government also played a part in promoting the overproduction of the land. The Federal Bureau of Soils claimed that, “The soil is the one indestructible, immutable asset that the nation possessed. It is the one resource that cannot be exhausted, that cannot be used up” (Egan 51). Egan points to factors such as a high profit margin, the Great War, tractors, increased outputs when wheat prices fell, and governmental claims that caused the people to overproduce the land of the Great Plains. Egan then gives examples of how the overproduction destroyed the land. Egan explains that the farmers saw their only way out was to plant more wheat. This overproduction tore up the grass of the Great Plains, thus making the land more susceptible to the severe dust storms of the Dust
He will maintain that the criterion of right interpretation is its own suitability to some present purpose (Carr, 1961, p. 31). A number of prejudices, assumptions, and beliefs contributed to not seeing the bigger picture. The wisdom of the time suggested that the Dust Bowl affected all of Oklahoma. Removing that assumption and looking at the facts, it shows that the affected area was the panhandle of Oklahoma.
Gregory, James N. "Dust Bowl Legacies." University of Washington. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Dec. 2013.
Klein,Christopher. “10 Things You May Not Know About the Dust Bowl” History. history channel 24 August, 2012. Web. 21 nov 2013 http://www.history.com/news/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-the-dust-bowl
One major difference between the two events was the death toll. During the Dust Bowl, the major windstorms & dust-storms force dust into people's lungs. This caused a disorder called "Dust Pneumonia". According to Denver's Post: effects of the Dust Bowl, the Dust Bowl caused "7,000 people, men, women, and especially small children" to die from this disorder 'Dust Pneumonia'. During the 2012 drought, the number of deaths were much lower. There wasn't any dust-storms that caused Dust Pneumonia. Also, medical treatments and medicine have improved greatly since the
The drought, being the single most devastating effect on planting crops in the Great Plains, proved to be a force of devastation for many years. Moreover, since there was little rain it was virtually impossible to plant anything that could survive the harvesting season during the dustbowl. If you have no rain and no moisture
3. The dust bowl caused many people to leave plains state and move to California. Two hundred thousand people moved to California and inflated the population. In Los
One of America’s most beloved books is John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. The book portrays a family, the Joads, who leave Oklahoma and move to California in search of a more prosperous life. Steinbeck’s book garnered acclaim both from critics and from the American public. The story struck a chord with the American people because Steinbeck truly captured the angst and heartbreak of those directly impacted by the Dust Bowl disaster. To truly comprehend the havoc the Dust Bowl wreaked, one must first understand how and why the Dust Bowl took place and who it affected the most. The Dust Bowl was the result of a conglomeration of weather, falling crop prices, and government policies.
Farming was the major growing production in the United States in the 1930's. Panhandle farming attached many people because it attracted many people searching for work. The best crop that was prospering around the country was wheat. The world needed it and the United States could supply it easily because of rich mineral soil. In the beginning of the 1930's it was dry but most farmers made a wheat crop. In 1931 everyone started farming wheat. The wheat crop forced the price down from sixty-eight cents/ bushels in July 1930 to twenty-five cents/ bushels July 1931. Many farmers went broke and others abandoned their fields. As the storms approached the farmers were getting ready. Farmers increased their milking cowherds. The cream from the cows was sold to make milk and the skim milk was fed to the chickens and pigs. When normal feed crops failed, thistles were harvested, and when thistles failed, hardy souls dug up soap weed, which was chopped in a feed mill or by hand and fed to the stock. This was a backbreaking, disheartening chore, which would have broken weaker people. But to the credit of the residents of the Dust Bowl, they shouldered their task and carried on. The people of the region made it because they knew how to take the everyday practical things, which had been used for years and adapt them to meet the crisis.
The Dust Bowl existed, in its full quintessence, concurrently with the Great Depression during the 1930's. Worster sets out in an attempt to show that these two cataclysms existed simultaneously not by coincidence, but by the same culture, which brought them about from similar events. "Both events revealed fundamental weaknesses in the traditional culture of America, the one in ecological terms, the other in economic." (pg. 5) Worster proposes that in American society, as in all others, there are certain accepted ways of using the land. He sums up the "capital ethos" of ecology into three simply stated maxims: nature must be seen as capital, man has a right/obligation to use this capital for constant self-advancement, and the social order should permit and encourage this continual increase of personal wealth (pg. 6) It is through these basic beliefs that Worster claims the plainsmen ignored all environmental limits, much ...
The Dust Bowl was a rough time for farmers in the 1930’s. The Dust Bowl was a drought that had many dust storms involved, which lasted about a decade.
Overmiller, Dulcie. "The Dust Bowl." Depression Era Framing History. The Robin Educational Foundation, 24 Nov. 2003. Web. 08 Feb. 2014. . (Overmiller).
The Dust Bowl was a devastating storm that affected the Midwestern people. Carloads and caravans of people streamed over the mountains, hungry and restless. The kids were hungry the adults were broken. The early thirties opened with prosperity and growth. At the time the Midwest was full of agricultural growth. The Panhandle of the Oklahoma and Texas region was the holy grail of agriculture. Farming was the major production in the United States in the 1930 's. The best crop that was prospering around the country was wheat. The world needed it and the United States could supply it easily because of rich mineral soil. In the beginning of the 1930 's it was dry but most farmers planted a wheat crop. In 1931 everyone started farming wheat. The