The most beautiful individuals are the ones who went through one of the toughest situations but, yet, came out victorious in a fight that could not be only physically won but mentally. During the Great Depression, there were various factors that played a tremendous role in the devastation on the American people. The Dust Bowl, in 1934, coerced darkness across the Great Plains in America as the rains ceased completely in the earlier 1930s (“Dust”). Soil starved from water sought out for revenge and strangled the life out of the settler’s crops, prosperity, and life as they knew it. To make an already terrible situation even worse, the Great Depression developed and began its toll on the citizens of America when the stock market crashed and farmers …show more content…
The Great Depression hit the citizens of America in 1930 and created havoc on farmer’s crop profits (Tarshis 8). The banks began to close and lose money. Wheat prices dropped and life for the settlers of the Great Plains became harsh. There was no money circulating throughout the economy given that no one in the region had any to spend without the sales of their crops (Henderson). Families became poor and could no longer manage their farms. The economy suffered terribly without the support of the farmer’s profits circulating. This created the beginning of the most widely known suffrage of the American people. Wheat became no longer a demand since half of the country could not afford even their mortgages or anything besides what they could ration on their own (Wik). Since the farmers stripped the land of the prairie grass, soil throughout the Great Plains became dry and wilted. Winds became avid and blew the dust into the air creating a brown atmosphere. Many suffered from breathing in the dust and were sent to local hospitals for a condition called “dust pneumonia” (Tarshis 9). The dust invaded houses and almost every area of the settler’s lives. It was impossible to escape the dust. The dust seemed to choke the life out of everything in its path. This decade of life for the nation and especially the settlers of the Great …show more content…
The Great Depression and Dust Bowl created havoc on the country’s economic standpoint for almost a decade. It was time for the government to take action. President Franklin Roosevelt proposed that money should be invested in the people, the working class (Roosevelt). By investing in the people it would increase the circulation of money. With the circulation of money, it would create businesses and blooming businesses would create job opportunities for the citizens of America. President Roosevelt created the CCC that would offer seven programs to help aid families caught in the devastation of the Great Depression and Dust Bowl (Roosevelt). The problems circulating around the two occurrences had to be hit square and precisely. When building a house, the foundation is the most important factor in it. Why? Without a strong, firm base, the house is easily able to crumble. However, when the foundation is built up adequately and sound, the house can withstand anything. The same goes for the country’s economic foundation. When the government invested in the people, it was exactly like investing in the foundation. The working class is what created the base for businesses, which then created job opportunities. Overall, the government’s response the catastrophic occurrence of the Great Depression and Dust Bowl was long overdue but, in the end, saved the county’s economic
Before the people had viewed that the economy and the government should be completely separate, but Roosevelt believed that it was the federal government’s responsibility to ensure the American economy is running smoothly. He brought upon the New Deal Legislation, in which was a program that enacted the three R’s, Relief, Recover and Reform. It also increased the size and power of the federal government. The Relief measures were short term strategies to help the hold stability until the economy recovered. During the Great Depression, thousands of banks started failing due to people removing their funds because they didn’t trust the banks.
The people living through the Great Depression’s toughest challenge was finding a job to help provide for their families survive the harsh demands of the business world. Industrial companies were in decline and the stock market crashed. Their struggles only persisted and hope for new opportunities were
Donald Worster is an environmental historian and his book Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s helped to define the environmental history movement as it was the first environmental history book published. He breaks the stereotype of how the Dust Bowl was viewed by writing it from an environmental standpoint instead of writing a social history by focusing solely on the people and their experiences. How it helped to define the environmental history movement is that it opened up this avenue for others to write about environmental issues. He is also an anti-capitalist and this book combines his interest in the environment with the effect that capitalism has on the environment.
Have you ever imagined a world covered in a huge cloud of dust and soot - so much that you can’t even see your own hands? This is how the daily life in the Dust Bowl era felt when a giant cloud of dirt and dust rolled over an area of an affected plain state. For thousands of years, the Southern Plains were covered by shortgrass prairie. People looked to settle in the plain states in seek of better and less expensive land for farming. They ripped up a large portion of the land’s native crops and plants during the construction of housing and preparation of farmland.
The invasion of a person’s body can lead to fatal consequences [6]. It was recorded that there were claims of greater incidence of pneumonia, asthma, influenza, and eye infections were reported during the Dust Bowl. It was believed that the dust was the home
A big reason is that In 1909, Congress passed the Homestead Act which offered cheap land and false incentives to attract people to settle. (USA Today) The government played a major role in getting people to come to the dry land. Another reason is the price for wheat increased during World War I as the demand from Europe grew strong.
INTRODUCTION An Italian immigrant once said, "I came to America because I heard the streets were paved with gold. When I got here, found out three things: First, the streets weren't paved with gold; second, they weren't paved at all: and third, I was expected to pave them” (Immigrant). The 1930s in America were a time of hardship for the many migrant workers immigrating to America. During this time, many immigrants wanted to come to America for better job opportunities and for a better life in general.
Dust Bowl and Economics of the 1930s The Dust Bowl was a very desperate and troublesome time for America. The southwestern territories were in turmoil due to the arid effect of the drought causing no fertile soils. As the rest of America was being dragged along with the stock market crash and higher prices of wheat and crops since the producing areas couldn't produce. This was a streak of bad luck for the Americans as they were in a deep despair for a quite some time.
The Dust Bowl of the 1930 's caused devastation for the mid-west at the time. It went on in Oklahoma,Texas,New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas; however, slimmer areas were actually affected by the Dust Bowl like the Oklahoma panhandle, the Texas panhandle, the Northeast of New Mexico, the Southeast of Colorado, and the western third of Kansas. The drought that caused the Dust Bowl affected about 27 states and covered about 75% of the country. It was in April of 1934 that Black Sunday, the worst storm of the Dust Bowl, occurred. Shortly after President Franklin D. Roosevelt passed the Conservation Act.
The dust bowl was considered the “Worst hard time” in american history. The Dust Bowl was a big cloud of dust that took place during the 1930’s in the middle of the Great Depression. The dust bowl was located in the southern great plains as it affected states like Kansas, Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado. The three main causes of the Dust Bowl were drought (Doc E), amount of land being harvest (Doc D), and the death shortgrass prairie (Doc C).
In 1929, the U.S. was hit with the worst economic crisis in the history of the country, the Great Depression. The Great Depression left millions of people unemployed and cost millions their life's savings. The Depression lasted for ten long years for the American people. Since the Great Depression ended, people have studied it, trying to figure out what happened that started it all. The problem was, in fact, the poor economic habits of the people at the time, such as speculation, income maldistribution, and overproduction.
Farmers had no irrigation systems, reservoirs, or canals, making it almost impossible to grow crops or raise livestock. Five years after it stopped raining, the wind started to blow and things became even more difficult for the Okies. These dust storms opened doors, shattered windows, and leveled barns. They had to sleep with rags over their faces at night, but still found their pillows, blankets, teeth, and tongue caked with dirt or grit. Many people who stayed out in the wind too long caused severe damage to their lungs, which was called “dust pneumonia,” and died.
The story starts off by telling you to imagine what it’d be like to live in the 1930’s when the Dust Bowl had taken effect. When dust storms came everyone in the area had to prepare quickly to withstand them. The wind combined with the dust and gravelly dirt was very strong and loud, easily getting into houses and cutting off fresh oxygen. Dust storms of the 1930’s were supposedly one of the worst natural disasters. They had affected everyone and everything in the area, so many Migrated West.
“Dry land farming on the Great Plains led to the systematic destruction of the prairie grasses. In the ranching regions, overgrazing also destroyed large areas of grassland. Gradually, the land was laid bare, and significant environmental
Nature’s delicate balance of wind, rain, and grass had been disturbed by human settlement. Fifty years earlier, a strong protective carpet of grass had covered the Great Plains. The grass held moisture in the soil and kept the soil from blowing away (Holley).” Before the Great Plains were settled, its geography was covered in lush grasses that made it perfect for farming and raising livestock. As the population grew and more and more people settled there, the grass was removed so that they could farm the land.