Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Causes and effects of the dust bowl
Effects of dust bowl
The recovery of the dust bowl
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Causes and effects of the dust bowl
It was the 1930, one of the most devastating years in history of the United States. It was a normal day at school. Everyone excited for the first day of school. Days and months passed and things seemed to be getting different. No rain, water, or food. Lucy, an 18 year old attending Education High school. Gathered her belongings and headed to her house. Weeks passed and there was no sign of rain. Many kids went to school sick and tired. October 17,1931 Lucy was sitting next to the teacher, and suddenly she saw a huge amount of dust approaching the school. Her English teacher Mrs.Luke exclaimed at the kids to leave school and go home as fast as they could.. Lucy ran, tripped and cried. She was hurt but she knew that she needed to move on. Many …show more content…
Breathing made it difficult to breath due to the dust in the air. According to Cary Nelson, a professor at the University of Illinois, stated that “The simplest acts of life — breathing, eating a meal, taking a walk — were no longer simple”(Nelson). Due to the dust in the air many children wore dust masks to in from school (“Nelson”). For example Jayde Taylor a dedicated writer to the Dust Bowls stated, besides the crops and homes, the clogging of lungs with dirt caused “serious health issues”, which meant that breathing made it difficult for people (Taylor et al). Thousands of residents died from this, but no one actually knows (“The Dust Bowl Migration”). Fevers, lung disease, malnutrition, softening of bones caused by the Dust Bowl. Besides, this also leads to economic issues. Maria Trimarchi, holds a bachelor's degree in English from Skidmore College, she wrote “A post-World War I recession led farmers to try new mechanized farming techniques as a way to increase profits” (Trimarchi). Thus in 1934 farmer’s had already sold ten percent of their land, “Half of those sales were caused by the depression and drought” (Amadeo). Furthermore Robin A.Fanslow a journalist “Many independent farmers lost their farms when banks came to collect on their notes, while tenant farmers were turned out when economic pressure was brought to bear on large landholders” (Fanslow). They later increased their profits, but most “farmers …show more content…
“How the Dust Bowl Environmental Disaster Impacted the US Economy.” The Balance, www.thebalance.com/what-was-the-dust-bowl-causes-and-effects-3305689.
“Dust Bowl.” History, A&E, www.history.com/topics/dust-bowl.
“Dust Bowl Migration.” Rural Migration News, migration.ucdavis.edu/rmn/more.php?id=1355.
Fanslow, Robin A. “The Migrant Experience.” LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, American Folklife Center Library of Congres, 6 Apr. 1998, www.loc.gov/collections/todd-and-sonkin-migrant-workers-from-1940-to-1941/articles-and-essays/the-migrant-experience/.
Nelson, Carry. “About The Dust Bowl.” MODERN AMERICAN POETRY, www.english.illinois.edu/maps/depression/dustbowl.htm.
Taylor, Jayde, et al. “Disease during the Dust Bowl .” Dittes Spring 2011, sites.google.com/site/english11hschs/home/grapes-of-wrath/great-depression/disease.
Trimarchi, Maria. “What Caused the Dust Bowl?” Howstuffwork,
...n the trying time of the Great Migration. Students in particular can study this story and employ its principles to their other courses. Traditional character analysis would prove ineffective with this non-fiction because the people in this book are real; they are our ancestors. Isabel Wilkerson utilized varied scopes and extensive amounts of research to communicate a sense of reality that lifted the characters off the page. While she concentrated on three specifically, each of them served as an example of someone who left the south during different decades and with different inspirations. This unintentional mass migration has drastically changed and significantly improved society, our mindset, and our economics. This profound and influential book reveals history in addition to propelling the reader into a world that was once very different than the one we know today.
The Dust Bowl over its time that it occurred affected many things living or nonliving.
1.The great depression was a time between late 1929 to 1939 and was completely ended during World War Two. It started with a series of events, most famously the Wall Street stock market crash, that induce poverty on the American citizens. It caused the downfall of the US economy.
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.
In the book Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s the author, Donald Worster, makes the argument that the Dust Bowl was a mostly a direct result of farmer’s methods and misuse of the fragile plains environment. However, there were many other largely contributing factors to the Dust Bowl. While the farmer’s methods played a role, other factors such as economic decline, unusually high temperatures, an extended drought accompanied by and economic depression, and the resulting wind erosion were all factors that help explain The Dust Bowl.
The Dust Bowl was a time period in which many dust storms affected the agriculture and economy of the United States. Before the dust storms and droughts, the land being used by the farmers was already being damaged. Overuse had caused the soil to become useless, and by over-cultivating the land, farmers were no longer able to use the once fertile soil, causing a major impact on the lives of those involved in agriculture.
In the “Black Blizzard” by scholastic scope the article describes how people lived during the “Dust Bowl.” The dust storms are like a tidal wave but instead of water, it has dust and dirt. Some of these dust storms could go 7,000 feet high. Animals ran in fear of the storms. During the 1930’s Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, New Mexico, and Colorado were hit by hundreds of storms. This natural disaster destroyed the economy of the whole area. Families moved to the Great Plains. With hard work farmers were able to grow corn and wheat. In 1931 there was a terrible drought in the middle of the nation. For five years in a row crops failed and people couldn’t pay their mortgages. With no rainfall soil became loose, dry, dusty, and blew away. Dust buried
The Great Depression was a huge economic crash, which put countries into terrible debt and put people on the streets. During the Great Depression people were living in ghettos, they had no food to eat or jobs, however this was not the only issue during the 1930’s. The dust bowl had struck Texas, Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico which was the main source of crops at the time. This caused a massive drought which caused economic distress. When the United States “sneezed” the rest of the world caught a cold. All because of a tremendous dust storm.
During the Dust Bowl, dust would get everywhere. You could not hide from it. Dust got in between the cracks in the walls of the houses. People then would have to turn over their plates so they did not get dust on their food. “Daddy says, ‘The potatoes are peppered plenty tonight, Polly, and they chocolate milk for dinner, aren’t we in clover!’ When really all our peppe and chocolate, is nothing but dust.” (Heese 21). It was not just people either. It was animals who also died in The Dust Bowl. They would breathe in the dust and it would clog up their lungs and they would
One group that was affected by the Dust Bowl were the farmers. The farmers lost their entire way of life. They lost everything like there crops and some of their animals if they had any. Now they have to spend money to rebuild everything that they had. Farmers was the most population affected by this. The Dust Bowl left bad soil and drought so the farmers couldn't farm.
When a person hears the words, “The Great Depression” they tend to think of one of the worst economic times in the United States. The Dust Bowl also contributed to this. The Great Depression and the Dust Bowl (also known as the Dirty Thirties) hit the United States like a truck. The Great Depression and the Dust Bowl affected many Americans in many different ways. American people also faced challenges, and they reacted in the most heartfelt and inspiring ways. The government saw the hardships people were facing and tried to help in the best way they could.
One of the many trials that migrant workers faced were the conditions they had to live in. They sometimes had to stay in barns or chicken coops because sometimes the farm owners just didn’t care or they did not have enough money (“The Harvest Gypsies”). They also had to sleep in one room and one story shacks that had no plumbing or electricity and basically had to pay half their daily wages just to stay there (“ Depression Era: 1930s: Repatriation
Imagine this, you are walking back from school, you are in the middle of nowhere no one beside you and suddenly the ground begins to shake, like an earthquake but even worse. A big cloud of dust begins to roll over the hills, running towards you at 60 miles per hour. You try to run but in your head you know you will never make it. You stop and look for a place to hide, there is nothing. You stick your head in your backpack and lie on the cold hard ground. You feel the stampede coming closer and closer. You hold your breath and begin to fly with the dust. You scream hoping for a chance to breath and stop and live, but no, you continue choking and flying till the storm passes.
Black Sunday refers to a particularly severe dust storm that occurred on April 14, 1935, as part of the Dust Bowl. It was one of the worst dust storms in American history and it caused immense economic and agricultural damage. It is estimated to have displaced 300 million tons of topsoil from the prairie area in the US.