The End Dust Bowl A enormous storm sends millions of tons of soil flying from across the Great Plains of the US all way to New York, Boston and Atlanta. The Great Depression was the worst economic downturn in world history. These choking billows of dust – named "black blizzards" or "black rollers" – traveled cross country, reaching as far as the East Coast and striking such cities as New York City and Washington, D.C. On the plains, they often reduced visibility to 3 feet (1 m) or less. The federal government encouraged settlement and development of the Plains for agriculture via the Homestead Act of 1862, offering settlers ”quarter section” 160-acre (65 ha) plots. [11] The area is semiarid, receiving less than 20 inches (510 mm) of rain annually; this rainfall supports the shortgrass prairie biome originally present in the area. The Dust Bowl widely influenced soil productivity for farming, air quality in daily life, and human health in long term. The Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s; severe drought and a failure to apply dryland farming methods to prevent the aeolian processes (wind erosion) caused the phenomenon. Author John Steinbeck, borrowing closely from field notes taken by Farm Security Administration worker and author Sanora Babb,[citation needed] wrote The Grapes of Wrath (1939) about migrant workers and farm families displaced by the Dust Bowl. It worsened the Great Depression and could happen again. The Dust Bowl area lies principally west of the 100th meridian on the High Plains, characterized by plains which vary from rolling in the north to flat in the Llano Estacado. It is also a defining moment in American government, politics, culture, economics, and even Oklahoma history. [22] Two days later, the same storm reached cities to the east, such as Cleveland, Buffalo, Boston, New York City, and Washington, D.C.[23] That winter (1934–1935), red snow fell on New England. The President's Drought Committee issued a report in 1935 covering the government's assistance to agriculture during 1934 through mid-1935: it discussed conditions, measures of relief, organization, finances, operations, and results of the government's assistance. About one-eighth of California's population is of Okie heritage. President Roosevelt ordered the Civilian Conservation Corps to plant the Great Plains Shelterbelt, a huge belt of more than 200 million trees from Canada to Abilene, Texas to break the wind, hold water in the soil, and hold the soil itself in place. [28] The severe drought and dust storms had left many homeless; others had their mortgages foreclosed by banks, or felt they had no choice but to abandon their farms in search of work. Different groups took many different approaches to responding to the disaster. Farmers plowed a lot of the new land on the prairie during World War I. Here are some interesting facts about the Dust Bowl: •In 1932, there were 14 dust storms recorded on the Plains (an area that included the panhandle of Oklahoma and Texas, southwest Kansas, southeastern Colorado, and Nebraska). As part of New Deal programs, Congress passed the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act in 1936, requiring landowners to share the allocated government subsidies with the laborers who worked on their farms. A return of unusually wet weather seemingly confirmed a previously held opinion that the "formerly" semiarid area could support large-scale agriculture. [32], Historian James N. Gregory examined Census Bureau statistics and other records to learn more about the migrants. [22], The Dust Bowl exodus was the largest migration in American history within a short period of time. The Dust Bowl refers to the series of severe dust storms that swept across the Great Plains region throughout the second half of the 1930s. [20] The persistent dry weather caused crops to fail, leaving the plowed fields exposed to wind erosion. The soil became so dry that it turned to dust. [25] After much data analysis, the causal mechanism for the droughts can be linked to ocean temperature anomalies. Voices of Oklahoma interview with Frosty Troy. Agricultural Adjustment Administration and Murphy, Philip G., (1935). [13] The agricultural methods favored by farmers during this period created the conditions for large-scale erosion under certain environmental conditions. Babb's own novel about the lives of the migrant workers, Whose Names Are Unknown, was written in 1939 but was eclipsed and shelved in response to the success of Steinbeck's work, and was finally published in 2004. Families were struck by massive storms of dust, along with the Great Depression. Eventually the Dust Bowl came to an end in the Fall of 1937. Three million people left their farms on the Great Plains during the drought and half a million migrated to other states, almost all to the West. The Dust Bowl | Discussion Questions | Activities | Resources. In 1941, a Kansas agricultural experiment station released a bulletin that suggested reestablishing native grasses by the "hay method". Allitt p 211, paraphrasing William Cronin's evaluation of Mathew Paul Bonnifield, Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act, Learn how and when to remove this template message, "What we learned from the Dust Bowl: lessons in science, policy, and adaptation", "Did dust storms make the Dust Bowl drought worse? Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. The 2014 science fiction film Interstellar features a ravaged 21st-century America which is again scoured by dust storms (caused by a worldwide pathogen affecting all crops). During the Depression and through at least the 1950s, there was limited relative adjustment of farmland away from activities that became less productive in more-eroded counties. LinkedIn with Background The drought and erosion of the Dust Bowl affected 100,000,000 acres (400,000 km2) that centered on the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma and touched adjacent sections of New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas. Without the indigenous grasses in place, the high winds that occur on the plains picked up the topsoil and created the massive dust storms that marked the Dust Bowl period. Artists such as Dorothea Lange were aided by having salaried work during the Depression. [26] The abandonment of homesteads and financial ruin resulting from catastrophic topsoil loss led to widespread hunger and poverty. [14] While initial agricultural endeavors were primarily cattle ranching, the adverse effect of harsh winters on the cattle, beginning in 1886, a short drought in 1890, and general overgrazing, led many landowners to increase the amount of land under cultivation. To finalize, the Dust Bowl was a very difficult time for many people. The administration also began to educate farmers on soil conservation and anti-erosion techniques, including crop rotation, strip farming, contour plowing, terracing, and other improved farming practices. [7] The Dust Bowl forced tens of thousands of poverty-stricken families to abandon their farms, unable to pay mortgages or grow crops, and losses reached $25 million per day by 1936 (equivalent to $460,000,000 in 2019). [25]:3 Even over the long-term, the agricultural value of the land often failed to recover to pre-Dust Bowl levels. In the fall of 1939, after nearly a decade of dirt and dust, the drought ended when regular rainfall finally returned to the region. Waves of European settlers arrived in the plains at the beginning of the 20th century. Ever since Friday of last week, there hasn't been a day pass but what the county was beseieged [sic] with a blast of wind and dirt. If there had been no Government program, if the old order had obtained in 1933 and 1934, that drought on the cattle ranges of America and in the corn belt would have resulted in the marketing of thin cattle, immature hogs and the death of these animals on the range and on the farm, and if the old order had been in effect those years, we would have had a vastly greater shortage than we face today. The Dust Bowl was the worst manpmade ecological disater in American history. Dust Bowl and the Great Depression . If it wasn’t for the geography of the Great Plains, the invention of the tractor, and the droughts, the Dust Bowl would have never existed, and times back then would be much easier. [25][verification needed], Geographic characteristics and early history, Aggregate changes in agriculture and population on the Plains, borrowing closely from field notes taken by. Along with inspiration from the 1930s crisis, director Christopher Nolan features interviews from the 2012 documentary The Dust Bowl to draw further parallels. Many others remained where they had resettled. Great Depression/Dust Bowl Timeline created by chanson. Decades later, Thompson disliked the boundless circulation of the photo and resented the fact she did not receive any money from its broadcast. Because of this long seige of dust and every building being filled with it, the air has become stifling to breathe and many people have developed sore throats and dust colds as a result. 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