Causes And Effects Of The 1930's Dust Bowl

The Causes and Effects of the 1930s Dust Bowl

Calvin Coolidge, former U.S. president who served during the “roaring twenties,” once said about the state of America during the 1930s, “In other periods of depression, it has always been possible to see some things which were solid and upon which you could base hope, but as I look about, I now see nothing to give ground to hope-nothing of man.” The “Dust Bowl,” also known as the “dirty thirties,” was a period in American history characterized by severe dust storms that damaged the agriculture of the Great Plains. This event, caused by drought and poor farming practices, led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people and had disastrous effects on the environment. The subsequent and concurrent

“During the summers of 1934, 1936 and 1939-40, little rain fell, creating drought conditions in Iowa and across the Midwest. Extreme high temperatures topped 100 degrees sometimes for weeks at a time. Crops withered in the field and again, the soil was left with no cover to prevent the topsoil from blowing into the air.” (Dust Bowl | IDCA). This, of course, affected farmers as their crops could not survive the arid and dry conditions, but also lack of rainfall is what allowed the “dust storms” occur. Wind speeds in the Midwest are known for their strength and speed, and with no rain to dampen the soil or plants to root the soil in place, dust storms started occurring at unnatural frequencies. These dust storms ravaged the American Midwest as people couldn’t keep anything free from dust, their homes were ruined, and the little food they had, was covered in dust and grime. It should be noted that the Midwest is not known for its plentiful rainfall as “...the region—which receives an average rainfall of less than 20 inches (500 mm) in a typical year—suffered a severe drought in the early 1930s that lasted several years” (The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica). Now that the Dust Bowl is underway what effects will the food shortage and climate changes have on an already declining

Therefore, it isn’t hard to believe that the two events had to do with one another. For example, one known relationship between the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression where the Great Depression had an effect, or worsened, the Dust Bowl is the fact that economic depression led to the Dust Bowl. As previously mentioned, the Dust Bowl caused an economic crisis to occur across most of America, but it should also be noted that the Great Depression worsened the Dust Bowl before it had time to affect economies. As “economic conditions also created pressure on farmers to abandon soil conservation practices to reduce expenditures…, reductions in soil conservation measures and the encroachment onto poorer lands made the farming community more vulnerable to wind erosion, soil moisture depletion, depleted soil nutrients, and drought.” (The Dust Bowl | National Drought Mitigation Center). Farmers were making poor choices in the hopes that it would save their farms and crops and allow them to provide food, money, and shelter to their families. Farmers may have been implementing poor practices, but it was out of the hope that would save them and their livelihoods. Furthermore, “wheat prices in the United States plummeted, so farmers in the Great Plains had to plow up more grassland and plant more wheat just to make a profit. This further contributed to the environmental