The Dust Bowl

In addition to the economic plight suffered by the farmers during the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl added to their hardships by destroying their homes, choking them, and by leaving them with even less food.

The Dust Bowl was caused by many factors. The drought that was experienced in the mid-south plains region led to the Dust Bowl because it made the topsoil very dry. Rain makes the soil heavier, so when there was no rain the soil was very light and susceptible to be carried by gusts of wind.  What also contributed to the poor soil conditions was the huge number of farmers who had rushed into the region because of the "manifest destiny" mindset.  They worked the land very hard and changed the land to make it easier to farm.  They pulled out a lot of the native grasses and dug up more soil with their plows.  The native grasses were very important to the ecosystem.  They held down the dirt with their long roots. When they were dug up, there was nothing holding down the dry dirt anymore. Finally, another environmental factor that led to the dust bowl was very high winds. When these winds swept across the plains, they scooped up the very dry topsoil. The winds accumulated more and more soil getting bigger and bigger because of static electricity between the dust in the air and the dust on the ground.  Eventually they formed the monstrous clouds that characterize the Dust Bowl.


These dust clouds were gigantic. Some clouds reached up to 10,000 feet high. What caused them to be so dangerous was both their size as well as their speed.  The wind blew the dust at 65 miles per hour, and the dust was ever carried all the way to New York where it blotted out the sun.  Before researching the Dust Bowl, I did not really think of it as a problem and we did not talk much about it in class. However, I learned that 7,000 people died because of the Dust Bowl. The Dust Bowl killed people by filling their lungs with dust and making them unable to breathe, a condition referred to as "dust pneumonia".  Some small children also died because they were blown away by the powerful winds. The Dust Bowl was horrible and harmed so many people.

7,000 people died, yet 2,500,000 people fled their homes because of the Dust Bowl. They fled trying to escape the deadly winds, but also to find better opportunities because it was estimated that 35 million acres of land that was used for farming before the Dust Bowl was destroyed. Oklahoma was one of the states that was hardest hit. The people that fled Oklahoma were referred to as Okies and they were treated poorly in California as Californians had problems of their own. They were not liked because California was experiencing the Great Depression too so did not have enough jobs for the 250,000 immigrants. Their plight is described in John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath.

In my opinion, I believe that the Great Depression would have been shorter and would not have been so devastating had the Dust Bowl not occurred at the same time.  As mentioned before, 35 million acres of farmable land was lost which means much less food and jobs to go around.  All the people living in the mid-south became poor and unable to work, increasing the burden on the economy. Although Roosevelt attempted to help with the New Deal by starting programs like the Soil Erosion Service for example, these were not very successful. The Okies immigration to California supports the fact that the people in the area became a burden on everyone else already suffering from the Great Depression and thus worsened its effects.

Source: http://www.history.com/topics/dust-bowl