Dirty Thirties Research Papers

Outliving the Dirt Imagine waking up every day to a blizzard of dirt that gets into everything. To survive the Dirty Thirties farmers had to have grit and be hardworking. Families needed to dig deep to endure the constant hardships they faced. The Great Depression era began on Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929. Mass chaos began in the eastern cities. Banks were closing, jobs were being lost and businessmen were committing suicide rather than facing the reality of having lost everything. The Great Depression meant something completely different to farmers in the Midwest, they also had to deal with the constant dustbowl of the Dirty Thirties. The Dirty Thirties began in 1931 and continued until 1939 in the southern plains of Oklahoma, Kansas,

An estimated 350 million tons of dirt was picked up and carried towards Buffalo, New York and the Atlantic Ocean. Ships that were 300 miles off the coast recorded dust on their ships in the aftermath of the storm. The worst of the Dirty Thirties occurred between 1934 and 1939. Oklahoma took the most severe beating of the many states affected. (“Dusting off our Roots; The Dirty 30s”). An estimated thirty states were affected by the dust bowl era, and approximately fifty million acres of farm land were devastated in the aftermath (Knudson). Multiple causes led to the Dirty Thirties, most of which were due to wasteful farming practices (Robert

Tractors were a major improvement from horses and oxen as they required less care then livestock. (Robert Mclean). Tractors during this time period were not environmentally friendly and were one of the many smaller causes contributing to the Dirty Thirties (Mclean). Many of the smaller tractor companies were forced to file bankruptcy during this era because most farmers were unable to afford a new tractor. Even if some farmers were able to afford a new tractor, they were not able to use it due to poor farming conditions. Some of the larger companies such as John Deere, International and Allis Chalmers had built up enough revenue from investors that they were able to stay open. Many of those companies are still in operation to this day