Dust Bowl
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The Dust Bowl was the result of a series of dust storms in the central United States and Canada from 1931 to 1939[1], caused by decades of inappropriate farming techniques, with buffalo herds that fertilized the soil displaced by wheat farming, followed by a severe drought. The fertile soil of the Great Plains was exposed through removal of grass during plowing. During the drought, the soil dried out, became dust, and blew away eastwards, mostly in large black clouds. At times, the clouds blackened the sky all the way to Chicago, and much of the soil was completely lost into the Atlantic Ocean. This ecological disaster caused an exodus from Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and the surrounding Great Plains, with over 500,000 Americans left homeless.[2] Many migrated west looking for work.
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[edit] Background
It is well known that there was economic instability in agriculture during the 1930s, due to overproduction following World War I. National and international market forces during the war had caused farmers to push the agricultural frontier beyond its natural limits. Increasingly, marginal land that would now be considered unsuitable for use was developed to capture profits from the war.
With their land barren and homes foreclosed for unpayable debts, many farm families gave up and left. The migration was drastic; 15% of the state of Oklahoma moved west, and the migrants were generally referred to as "Okies," whether or not they were from Oklahoma. High-end estimates for the number of displaced Americans are as high as 2.5 million, but the lower value of 300,000 to 400,000 is more probable, based upon the 2.3 million population of Oklahoma at the time.
On November 11, 1933, a very strong dust storm stripped topsoil from desiccated South Dakota farmlands in just one of a series of disastrous dust storms that year. Then on May 11, 1934, a strong two-day dust storm removed massive amounts of Great Plains topsoil in one of the worst such storms of the Dust Bowl. The dust clouds blew all the way to Chicago where filth fell like snow, dumping the equivalent of four pounds of debris per person on the city. Several days later, the same storm reached cities in the east, such as Buffalo, Boston, New York City, and Washington, D.C.. That winter, red snow fell on New England.
On April 14, 1935 known as "Black Sunday", one of the worst "Black Blizzards" occurred throughout the Dust Bowl, causing extensive damage, turning the day to night. Witnesses reported that they could not see five feet in front of them at certain points.
During President Franklin D. Roosevelt's first 100 days, governmental programs to restore the ecologic balance of the nation were implemented. The U.S. Government was to form the Soil Conservation Service, now the Natural Resources Conservation Service.
The human crisis was documented by photographers from the Farm Security Administration; among which the most famous was Dorothea Lange.
[edit] See also
- 1936 North American heat wave
- Woody Guthrie
- The Grapes of Wrath
- Great Depression
- Rain follows the plow
- The Plow That Broke the Plains
- Timeline of environmental events
[edit] Further reading
- The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived The Great American Dust Bowl, Timothy Egan, Houghton Miflin Company, New York, 2006, hardcover, ISBN 0-618-34697-X.
- The Dust Bowl: Men, Dirt, and Depression, , Paul Bonnifield, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1978, hardcover, ISBN 0-8263-0485-0
- Survival in the Storm: The Dust Bowl Diary of Grace Edwards, Dalhart, Texas, 1935, Katelan Janke, Scholastic (September 2002), ISBN 0-439-21599-4
- The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck, The Viking Press. New York First Edition, 1939.
- Out of the Dust, Karen Hesse, Scholastic Signature. New York First Edition, 1997. hardcover (paperback January 1999) ISBN 0-590-37125-8
