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What Caused the Dust Bowl? One of America’s most beloved books is John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. The book portrays a family, the Joads, who leave Oklahoma and move to California in search of a more prosperous life. Steinbeck’s book garnered acclaim both from critics and from the American public. The story struck a chord with the American people because Steinbeck truly captured the angst and heartbreak of those directly impacted by the Dust Bowl disaster. To truly comprehend the havoc the Dust Bowl wreaked, one must first understand how and why the Dust Bowl took place and who it affected the most. The Dust Bowl was the result of a conglomeration of weather, falling crop prices, and government policies. The Dust Bowl, a tragic era lasting from 1930 to 1939, was characterized by blinding dust storms. These dust storms were composed of strong winds that blew across dry, cultivated soil for hundreds of miles, which could remain active for ten hours or more (Hansen, 667). The storms actually had the potential to drag on for days on end. In 1939, for example, one storm stop blowing for more than one hundred hours. The Dust Bowl impacted a large portion of the states; ranging from Colorado to Washington D.C. More than one million acres were affected all together. The heart of the dust storms concentrated on the Great Plains. Five states were hit the hardest: Colorado, Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico. The most affected farmland was located within a 160 kilometer radius of Liberal, Kansas. But these storms also moved east. Dust was spread to Chicago, Boston, Manhattan, Philadelphia and Washington. Natural conditions contributed to the cause of the Dust Bowl. During the year of 1936, North America was dealt an extreme am... ... middle of paper ... ...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.”
There are few novels that have the ability to shed light on historical context while simultaneously tell a captivating story. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck does an excellent job of telling a fascinating story and juxtaposing the historical importance of the time period. Set during the great dustbowl of the 1930’s, Steinbeck wrote this evolutionary tale to inform Americans across the country about the hardships faced by those who were left destitute by the natural disaster. Although the subject of the novel is the social and economic climate of America during the dust bowl, Steinbeck described different themes to illustrate how impactful the incident truly was. The dustbowl not only left thousands homeless, hungry, and poor, it also altered the social dynamic of the United States. Family dynamics changed, new prejudices developed, and religion became more prevalent. Through the themes of race, religion, gender, and class Steinbeck immerses the reader into the time of the great dust bowl. The reader becomes a 1930’s destitute farmer, who is looking to support his family in any manner possible.
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 during the Great Depression, which made it even worse! The Dust Bowl forced farmers out of business. Prices for the crops the farmers grew took a major dip. The total assistance is estimated at $1 billion for the Dust Bowl, according to Dust Bowl effects. The 2012 drought also forced farmers to panic. Due to the drought, food prices went up and farm spending was reduced. The farmers were not bringing in the money as they once were, since people didn't want to buy their products. According to 2012 drought costs, the drought cost taxpayers a record $14 billion!
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
John Steinbeck’s portrayal of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl is quite accurate. His descriptions of the Dust Bowl, the causes and what the “bowl” looked like, were precise according to Alan Brinkley’s text, The Unfinished Nation. Steinbeck and Brinkley both wrote that the worst drought in history had struck the Great Plains and lasted for a decade in the early 1930s. And at this time farmers had been tempted by high crop prices, which lead them to plow up the grass for more crop room and kept working the same crop, which eventually exhausted the soil. This and the lack of rainfall turned these regions into “virtual deserts,” and the great winds caused the dust to blow across the plains in clouds. Steinbeck went into great detail describing what this had looked liked. In his novel he described the Dust Bowl: “The wind increased, steady, unbroken gusts. The dusts from the roads fluffed up and spread out and fell on the weeds besides the fields . . . the sky was darkened by the mixing dust, and the wind felt over the earth, loosened the dust, and carried it away.” For the people living in these devastated lands, this was a very accurate account as to what the “weather” was like for weeks and months.
...d, crunchy and gritty with a thin layer of dust with every serving; from consuming such gravely meals, people often developed fragmented teeth. Driving and operating outdoor machinery became a huge hazard since the dust decreased visibility significantly. Because the dust carried so much static electricity, anything metallic – such as mills, pump handles, cooking pans, and doorknobs – would give the person in contact a harsh electric shock. Those outdoors would have to wear gas masks in order to prevent illnesses such as dust pneumonia and to prevent inhalation of dust. Dust contains a high amount of silica, but when inhaled for increasingly long periods of time, the silica began to coat the inside of the human body, unambiguously pursuing to coat the entire respiratory system. (Carson and Bonk 1). For most, the dust bowl was the most miserable time of their life.
The book The Worst Hard Time describes my experience on trying to get through this book but somehow almost made me grateful that even as difficult and exhausting as it was in actuality there was nothing worse, difficult or exhausting than living through the dust bowl storms in the 1930’s which luckily I did not do. If you ever feel ungrateful or depressed about something in your life just read this book and you will know that most problems now a days in the United States don’t compare to the hardships and loss of loved ones who died during the dust storms in the 1930s. The people who inhabited the dust bowl area which consisted of Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Colorado and Kansas where sold an Idea of the American dream of owning property
The Dust Bowl was also known as the “Dirty Thirties” which took its toll (Dunn n. pag.). The decade from the Dust Bowl was filled with extreme conditions such as tornadoes, floods, droughts, and dirt storms. The Dust Bowl occurred in the midwestern states of Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma. Within these states the conditions affected many peoples lives. The Dust Bowl had gotten its name after Black Sunday, April 14,1935( Ganzel n. pag.). While traveling through the midwest a reporter named Robert Geige, wrote, “Three little words achingly familiar on a western farmer’s tongue, rule life in the Dust Bowl of the continent- if it rains” (The Drought n. pag.). People back then used the term Dust Bowl to help describe the people that lived in the hard times of the drought stricken region during the Great Depression. The Dust Bowl is still a term we use today to describe the harsh times of the droughts and dirt storms. The Dust Bowl was a harsh time to live in, it affected many things such as: the way people lived and farming.
The Dust Bowl was a rough time for farmers in the 1930’s. The Dust Bowl was a drought that had many dust storms involved, which lasted about a decade.
Imagine coming home from the beach, there is sand in your hair, in your toes, in your bags, and basically there is sand everywhere, the Dust Bowl was not a simple, fun day at the beach It was a terrible historical event that affected the lives of many people. Did you think dust could ruin a country as much as it did? In three waves, the Dust Bowl came across American and Canadian prairies, ruining agriculture in both countries for about ten years. The Dust Bowl was later called the Dirty Thirties and had been caused by a long drought that lasted for the next devastating 1930’s.
The Dust Bowl also referred to as the Dirty Thirties; was a time where many people in the United States struggled through a difficult time caused by their own mistake of farming choice. For eight years, simple acts of life such as breathing, eating, and taking a walk were no longer easy to do. The Dust Bowl belongs on the list of the top three, four, or five environmental catastrophes in world history," according to historian Donald Worster of the University of Kansas.
Lawrence Svobida, a Kansas wheat farmer, speaks about farmers who decided to leave their farms; they loaded their possessions on trucks or trailers. He also mentions “endless processions” of people heading out of the Dust Bowl. Asked about the beginning of the Dust Bowl, he tells: "With the gales came the dust. Sometimes it was so thick that it completely hid the sun. Visibility ranged from nothing to fifty feet, the former when the eyes were filled with dirt which could not be avoided, even with goggles." Svobida is one of many farme...
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.
The Dust Bowl got its’ name from an article after a record storm, “The day after Black Sunday, an Associated Press reporter used the term ‘Dust Bowl’ for the first
The Dust Bowl was one of the hardest times in America in the 1930’s. The Dust Bowl was in the top 5 largest environmental catastrophes. It was harsh winds blowing dirt, sand, and dust up into the air making