The United States endured a dark time in the 1930’s. While Americans battled the depression, these that resided in the plains states suffered through a decade of severe weather conditions. This decade of several weather and ultimately the worst environmental disaster in US history became to be known as the Dust Bowl. The Dust Bowl caused farms to fail, severe health concerns and an increased migration to the west. The Dust Bowl resulted from a lack of agricultural knowledge and extreme weather conditions, but through research, the agricultural lands continue to improve.
In the 1930’s, the United States and Canadian prairies experienced almost a decade of damaging weather. Severe droughts, high temperatures, and high winds all played a role in what would become known as the Dust Bowl. However, extreme weather was not the only factor that caused the Dust Bowl. Farmers and ranchers exhibited
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poor farming practices such as over plowing their fields, failing to use dryland farming techniques, and allowing cattle and sheep to overgraze. Due to the removal of the natural grass that was not only capable of withstanding harsh weather, it is what kept the soil in place. Due to the drought, the soil became extremely dry and eroded the surface oil. This caused the topsoil to blow away during storms. During the dust bowl, farmers were forced to manage their crops without rain.
Most crops were either uprooted and blown away by the wind or rotted away and died due to the lack of water and sun. Ranchers were forced to watch as their animals suffocated from the dust while others suffered from starvation. The Dust Bowl was just as tough on the human body as it was for the animals. People who inhaled the dust particles endured coughing spasms, asthma, influenza, and bronchitis. The Brown Plague claimed the lives of hundreds of infants, young children, and the elderly. The reduced income caused both physical and emotional stress on the local community and their uncertain futures. Without any sign of relief, tens of thousands of people were forced to abandoned their farms. By 1940, 2.5 million people migrated out of the plains states, approximately 200,000 of them headed west to California (pbs.org). California was an appealing location due to President Roosevelt’s New Deal in 1933. California made significant improvements, with unskilled laborers earing three to four dollars a
day. Even with an increase in migration out of the plains states, many choose to stay with their farm and ride out the storms. The federal government took several measures to relieve the direct impact the drought was causing. In 1933, Congress created the Soil Erosion Service to implement erosion control programs. In 1935, a campaign began that provided financial incentives to turn unsuitable agricultural land into forests or pastures. Other drought relief efforts were implemented, such as crop rotation and contour plowing. Some efforts include establishing health care facilities for emergency medical needs; providing emergency supplies, cash, livestock feed and transport to maintain basic functioning of farms and ranches; providing supplies and technology to research, implement and promote land management strategies; and, by removing dead trees and planting new ones to alleviate the psychological stress and create a shelter belt. Relief efforts proved to be a success, by 1938, blowing soil had been reduced by 65 percent. The U.S. Farm Bill and conservation programs are continuing to tackle new challenges before they become catastrophic like the Dust Bowl. The 1930’s proved to be a difficult time for the American people. During the 1930’s, Americans battled the depression and the Dust Bowl. Millions were forced to migrate for better health and hopes of a better future. The Dust Bowl is the worst environmental disaster in US history but through research and agricultural policies, the plains states have improved and are continuing to be researched to avoid such a catastrophic disaster in the future. The Dust Bowl resulted from a lack of agricultural knowledge and extreme weather conditions, but through research, the agricultural lands continue to improve.
In the Rio Grande Valley littering is a big issue when it comes to animals and their habitats. Many individuals tend to throw trash on the streets and oceans when they go to beaches, for example South Padre Island. When people go on vacations, they always leave their trash on the sandy beaches and do not pick it up. This kind of action result in a bird confusing the plastic garbage for food and consuming it. Garbage is very dangerous for animals it can injure them and damage their digestive system which can sometimes result in death.
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.
The Dust Bowl was the name given to the Great Plains area in the 1930s. Much of the region was an agricultural area and relied on it for most of their economy. Combined with The Great Depression and the dust storms, farmers in the Great Plains area were severely hurt. These farmers were seeking opportunity elsewhere near the Pacific where they were mistreated by the others already there. The mistreatment is a form of disenfranchisement, by excluding and segregating a group of people from the rest of society. The disenfranchisement of the Oklahoma farmers during the 1930s was caused by a combination of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression which led to the farmers being forced to move west where they were mistreated because there were not enough jobs.
The Dust Bowl occurred for many reasons, most all our fault. “Some of the reasons that the Dust Bowl occurred were over-farming, livestock overgrazing, drought and poor farming practices.” (Dust Bowl facts and summary) Because of this negative experience it now teached us to be careful and now we know what to do to prevent this.“When drought struck from 1934 to 1937, the soil lacked the stronger root system of grass as an anchor.”("Dust Bowl Facts and summary") That's really bad for the farmers because then the wind can easily pick up the dirt off the
For various reason the Dust Bowl was deadly for livestock, including choking on dust, and starvation or mass culling of jackrabbits and later cattle to stabilize prices (The Great Plow Up). FDR 's New Deal unintentionally made society and especially farmers begin to rely on government in times of crisis. The Dust storms only got worse as the 1930s progressed. They were particularly demoralizing and frightening for many people but for the children the dust particles often lead breathing issues such as pneumonia. Women in particular were in a constant losing battle as the dust always came inside building and covered everything. In the garden which they needed to feed their family it was almost impossible to grow anything. Face coverings became a necessity to escape the blinding, unbreathable air found especially in the worst of storms. Depression both psychological and economic became commonplace, leading to many outstanding debts, foreclosures, and
...t Bowl. Unfortunately the circumstances in the Great Plains all came to a head resulting in a horrific ten years for citizens of the Great Plains. The Dust Bowl caused government and people to look at farming practices and to evaluate their output. These policies resulted in overproduction of crops causing the prices to fall. The conclusion of World War I and countries that stopped importing foods added to the pain the farmers were already feeling. Yet with the establishment of government policies such as the Federal Relief Administration and the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act and with drought coming to an end, the Dust Bowl came to an end. The American people knew that they needed to do everything that was possible to end the Dust Bow. Tom Joad, the lead character in The Grapes Wrath best sums it up “ I know this... a man got to do what he got to do.”
The “Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s”, was written by Donald Worster, who admits wanted to write the book for selfish reasons, so that he would have a reason o visit the Southern Plains again. In the book he discusses the events of the “dirty thirties” in the Dust Bowl region and how it affected other areas in America. “Dust Bowl” was a term coined by a journalist and used to describe the area that was in the southern planes in the states of Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas, between the years of 1931 and 1939. This area experienced massive dust storms, which left dust covering everything in its wake. These dust storms were so severe at times that it made it so that the visibility in the area was so low to where people
The 1930 's was a time of despair and devastation, leaving millions in ruins. America was at an all time low during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. The stock market had crashed and a severe drought turned into a disastrous storm. The 1930 's effected the nation and nobody knew the answer to the million dollar question, what caused Americas downfall? Historians have tried hard to solve the impossible puzzle and many have their theories, but the exact cause of the Dust Bowl continues to be unknown. At the core of understanding the Dust Bowl is the question of whose fault it was. Was it the result of farmers tilling land beyond what the environment could bear, or is it just a natural fluctuation in the atmosphere. These questions have
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 drought caused a lot of unfavorable conditions for farmers in the southwest. In Worster’s book he says “Few of us want to live in the region now. There is too much wind, dirt, flatness, space, barbed wire, drought, uncertainty, hard work…” (Worster 105). The droughts caused many unfavorable condition throughout the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles and neighboring sections of Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico. Thus, roughly one-third of Texas and Oklahoman farmers left their homes and headed to California in search of migrant work. The droughts during the 1930s are a drastically misrepresented factor of the Dust bowl considering “the 1930s droughts were, in the words of a Weather Bureau scientist, the worst in the climatological history of the country.” (Worster 232) Some of the direct effects of the droughts were that many of the farmers’ crops were damaged by deficient rainfall, high temperatures, and high winds, as well as insect infestations and dust storms that accompanied these conditions. What essentially happened was that 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.” The constant dry weather caused crops to fail, leaving the plowed fields exposed to wind erosion. The effects of the drought happened so rapidly and progressively over time that
The Dust Bowl had ruined any chance of farmers in those regions being able to farm, because of that they were forced to relocate to be able to survive. This created what is known as the Dust Bowl Migration. During the 1930’s and 1940’s these people decided to travel west to California in search of work. However, they did not receive the welcoming they might have
The Dust Bowl was "the darkest moment in the twentieth-century life of the southern plains," (pg. 4) as described by Donald Worster in his book "The Dust Bowl." It was a time of drought, famine, and poverty that existed in the 1930's. It's cause, as Worster presents in a very thorough manner, was a chain of events that was perpetuated by the basic capitalistic society's "need" for expansion and consumption. Considered by some as one of the worst ecological catastrophes in the history of man, Worster argues that the Dust Bowl was created not by nature's work, but by an American culture that was working exactly the way it was planned. In essence, the Dust Bowl was the effect of a society, which deliberately set out to take all it could from the earth while giving next to nothing back.
Pneumonia is also a problem for the children. Since food was also scarce in the dust bowl, children suffered watching their parents starve. Moving away from the dust bowl didn’t mean life would get easier. Many people moved to California, and they were given the nickname “Okies.” Most of the kids would get teased because they were an Okie.
The Dust Bowl was a brutal time period in Midwestern history; farmers were pushed off their land and forced to find new homes in new states.
During 1932-1938 after the Roaring 20’s and the Great Depression a series of major droughts occurred in central north america due to neglect and over farming of farm land. Right after a couple of these dust storms came through the US was in deep debt and economy trouble. The stock market had crashed and many people were very very poor so FDR put the Bank Act in place which was a four day bank holiday. By 1935 many struggling families headed west in search for new jobs, Many people headed to California to work on apple orchards,