Dust Bowl Dbq

In the 1930s there was an extremely long period of drought that happened in the Southern Plains of the United States. Not only did the area suffer severe dust storms that made crops fail throughout the entire region, but it caused the lives of many livestock and people to be taken away. This decade of dryness was known as the Dust Bowl. Although the Dust Bowl only lasted about 10 years, the economic impacts it had lasted for much longer. Some scientists believe it was the worst drought in North America in 300 years. Caused by a variety of factors, the Dust Bowl economically and socially impacted the lives of thousands.

The Dust Bowl affected the entire Midwest. "The worst of it laid waste to the Oklahoma panhandle. It also devastated

There were major rising wheat prices in the 1910s through 1920s and increased demand for wheat from Europe during World War I which encouraged farmers to plow up millions of acres of native grassland to plant wheat, corn and other row crops. But as the United States started to enter the Great Depression, wheat prices plummeted. Farmers tore up even more grassland in attempt to harvest a "bumper crop and break even." "Dust Bowl." History.com, 2009, https://www.history.com/topics/dust-bowl. Crops began to fail all over the land especially with the upcoming drought of 1931 which eventually exposed the over-plowed farmland. "The Dust Bowl wiped out nearly any live stock in the area, thus resulting in one of many causes of economic decline." "Economic & Social Effects of the Dust Bowl" Prezi.com, 17 Feb. 2015. https://prezi.com/m9gcen_i0hb0/economic-social-effects-of-the-dust-bowl/. Years of over-cultivation meant the soil lost its richness. Without the prairie grasses to hold the soil in place, it began to blow away. Eroding soil led to massive dust storms and economic devastation, especially in the Southern Plains. When the drought killed off the crops, high winds blew the remaining topsoil away. Parts of the Midwest has still not recovered even almost 80 years later! "When winds blew, they raised enormous clouds of dust. It deposited mounds of dirt on

The Pacific grew cooler than normal and the Atlantic became warmer. The combination weakened and changed the direction of the jet stream. "The jet stream is that air current usually carries moisture from the Gulf of Mexico up toward the Great Plains, and it then dumps rain when it reaches the Rockies." "How the Dust Bowl Environmental Disaster Impacted the US Economy. The Scary Thing Is That It Could Happen Again." TheBalance.com, 19 March 2018, https://www.thebalance.com/what-was-the-dust-bowl-causes-and-effects-3305689. But due to the shift in weather patterns, the jet stream got moved south which resulted in rain never reaching the Great Plains. It caused the region to live in a drought for almost a decade. There were four waves of droughts, one right after another. The droughts occurred in 1930-31, 1934, 1936, and 1939-1940. The affected regions could not recover from the previous drought before the next drought hit which made it feel like one long drought that just progressively got worse. The last drought didn't even end until 1940.The drought made it harder to harvest the crops the farmers needed to support themselves financially, so the economy declined dramatically. This was also one of the leading causes of the Great