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Dust Bowl Effects

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President Franklin D. Roosevelt once stated, “The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.” President Roosevelt said this quote during one of America’s greatest hardships, The Dust Bowl, and this quote explains how important agriculture is to the nation’s economy. The Dust Bowl started in 1930 and ended in 1939. These dust storms raged across the Midwest, mainly Arkansas Missouri, Nebraska, Louisiana, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, and Kentucky. The Dust Bowl had detrimental effects on the United States of America, the main aspects of The Dust Bowl include the economic factors, agricultural factors, Black Sunday, the impact on rural families, and the resolutions that helped fix the problem. Throughout history, a lot of problems …show more content…

The Dust Bowl had a negative impact on rural families because most of them could not escape the effects of dust storms. According to Trimarchi, many farmers faced foreclosure on their land because they were not earning enough money on crops to pay back their debts (Trimarchi, 2018). The Dust Bowl also caused soil erosion across the plains which led to crop failure. Farmers were not able to make any profit with their failing crops, this contributed to many farmers losing their land due to foreclosure. According to Ganzel, it was common for families in the Midwest to only eat one-dish meals and most families relied on chicken eggs for food (Ganzel, 2003). Ganzel also stated that kids often wore clothes made from flour sacks and dust pneumonia killed a lot of people across the Midwest (Ganzel, 2003). Parents would use flour sacks instead of cloth to make their clothes for their kids because they did not have to pay for the flour sacks. Farmers and their families would inhale the dust in the air and this would lead to a build-up of grit in their lungs eventually causing dust pneumonia. According to Roop, daily life was very hard for people that lived during The Dust Bowl (Roop, 2012, p.26). For instance, people taped wet sheets to their windows to keep the dust out, and dinnerware was kept overturned until dinner was ready to avoid eating dust. It was also a struggle for …show more content…

This statement can be proven by looking at the steps taken by the United States government to help stop The Dust Bowl. According to Trimarchi (2018), “In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt enacted the first of several mortgage and farming relief acts under the New Deal aimed to reduce foreclosures and keep farms afloat during the drought.” These acts included the Taylor Grazing Act, Civil Conservation Corps, Work Progress Administration, and Natural Resource Conservation Service (Trimarchi, 2018). The Taylor Grazing Act allowed the government to protect 140 acres in the Midwest, this land was used to for the rehabilitation and conservation of the soil with the help of grazing. The Civil Conservation Corps was a group of men that planted trees and built reservoirs along the Midwest in order to stop the drought that was causing The Dust Bowl. The Works Progress Administration, WPA, was put in place by the government to give people jobs and this allowed them to stop their farmers from being foreclosed. Many farmers needed money because their crops were failing because of The Dust Bowl, but they could not find work anywhere. The WPA helped these farmers by giving them jobs building bridges, roads, airports, public parks, and roads. The Natural Resource Conservation Service encouraged farmers to replenish their soil by using irrigation system and crop

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Dust Bowl, The Southern Plains in the 30’s written by Donald Worster and published in 1979, is an informative text on the Great Plains during the Great Depression. Donald Worster is a credible author because he not only earned a Ph.D. from Yale in environmental history, but he also had previously written a book on the environment and the economy. This book was written well and Worster did a good job of revealing how people and how they live have effected the areas environment. He spoke of places including, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas and many more.

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The three main causes of the Dust Bowl was Drought, amount of land being harvested on, and death of the shortgrass prairie. All of these reasons have to tie in with soil and water. The Dust Bowl was truly the Worst Hard Time in American history. It affected the great plains of america forever and would go down in

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The poor farming practices that were put in place by profit farmers disregarding the state of the land coupled with the sudden explosive growth in farming technology allowing these farmers to farm much larger plots of land with much more ease left the topsoil completely vulnerable. While it was natural phenomena that sparked the Dust Bowl, it was not the cause, as these natural phenomena on their own would not have been nearly enough to cause anything on the scale of the Dust Bowl. The Dust Bowl was a direct causation of the poor farming methods of the farmers of the

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Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930’s Donald Worster’s Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930’s was written by a Kansas Native who demonstrates the horrendous plague that destroyed the once prosperous plains in the American West. Worster depicts the primary reasons of the economical and agricultural struggles that generated the ‘Dirty 30’s’. In the Preface of the book Worster explains his reasoning for writing his book as ‘selfish’, due to the fact that he wrote it for himself in remembrance of the plains where he grew up. He explains the derivation of his information as so, “It is, however, based on not only on extensive library research, but on conversations with farmers, agronomists, and storekeepers;...”

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The Dust Bowl negatively affected people in an economic way. How Drought played a big role in The Dust Bowl “ Federal aid to the drought-affected states was first given in 1932, but the first funds marked specifically for drought relief were not released until the fall of 1933. In all, assistance may have reached $1 billion (in 1930s dollars) by the end of the drought (Warrick et al., 1980). “ ( Source - http://drought.unl.edu/DroughtBasics/DustBowl/EconomicsoftheDustBowl.aspx )

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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.

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The dust bowl was one of the most tragic event that ever happened in united states history it caused a lot of damage to a lot of states and impacted a lot of american lives. The dust bowl caused families to leave homes and families to go hunger on this tragic event. In april 18, 1935 a huge black cloud piled on western horizon which caused a big impact on people´s home. The dust bowl was mainly caused by drought,disappearing of a root system, And the mechanics of farming these are the main sources that caused the dust bowl and Impacted the tragic event towards american lives.

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During the Dust Bowl some people made the decision to stay at their farms. Huge drifts of dirt piled up on homesteaders’ doors, came in the cracks of windows and came down from the ceilings. Barnyards and pastures were buried in dirt. After about 850 million tons of topsoil was blown away in 1935 alone. The government responded to this by saying “Unless something is done, the western plains will be as arid as the Arabian desert.”

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The livestock was another group that was affected in the dust bowl. When the AAA demanded the farmers to plow over there land they killed 6 million young pigs were slaughtered. Many of those pigs just starved because the farmers were no longer working so they could not feed them. When the dust bowl came money farmers and ranchers livestock were killed and when they cut them open there was only dust in there lungs and guts. The cattle grazing was reduced and millions of more acres were plowed and planted.

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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.

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The lack of crops led to food shortages and increased prices, making it challenging for families to feed themselves. The Dust Bowl led to mass migrations, as people left their hames in search of better living conditions. The lasting effects of the Dust Bowl continued long after the Great Depression and it remains a reminder of the horrible effects caused by the environmental

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An epidemic raged throughout the Plains: they called it dust pneumonia.” Everybody was dying, even

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As long as the rain kept falling, neither of these mistakes caused problems.” In the contrary the FDR speech says the opposite “They stand ready to fit, and not to fight, the ways of Nature. We are helping and shall continue to help the farmer to do those things,” FDR puts the farmers in the place of victims who need help with contradicts the other text that directly blames the farmers unhealthy farming techniques to why the Dust Bowl

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Livestock could not breath or find food sources. Thousands of people lost their homes due to the storm. Changes in farming and agriculture in the early 1900s altered the landscape and soil creating the perfect environment for the Dust Bowl and impacted living conditions and economic policy. First, changes in farming and agriculture over the years led to the conditions that caused the Dust Bowl and impacted the Great Plains. “Wind and drought alone did not create the Dust Bowl.

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Scientist have concluded about 1.2 billion tons of soil was lost throughout 100 million acres. The amount of money lost is absurd, about 50 billion dollars were lost. Mostly all of the land that was effected from the Dust Bowl is now ghost towns and abandon. The cause of the Dust Bowl is farmers not taking good care of the land. Farmers would clear parts of land, then let their livestock graze in the grass until there was nothing left but dirt.

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