Summary Of The Worst Hard Time By Timothy Egan

The book “The Worst Hard Time” by Timothy Egan gives an in-depth perspective on the survivors of the Dust Bowl. Timothy Egan is a journalist and has authored other historical novels, including “The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America.” Egan wanted to show what the Dust Bowl was like for the people that lived in the Great Plains when it occurred. I chose this book because I have always been interested in the Great Depression and the events around and during it. “The Worst Hard Time” is a slightly biased, thorough retelling of the lives of people living through the Dust Bowl. Timothy Egan writes for the New York Times, the national correspondent and opinion columnist. “The Worst Hard Time” won the 2006 National Book Award.

This is an example of one of his primary sources because it is taken straight from the day Egan is writing about during the chapter. An example of a secondary source Egan used in the same chapter is from the No Man’s Land Museum in Oklahoma, which he visited to gather information. In chapter 8 “In a Dry Land” he cites the Dawson’s book, which is one of the families he narrates throughout the story. This is an interesting primary source directly written by one of his subjects, whose life Egan follows. Egan is qualified to write this historical novel because he has taken the time to gather his facts and stories from multiple different sources, giving him a well-rounded understanding of the Dust Bowl and the people he chose to write about. Timothy Egan wrote “The Worst Hard Time” as a story with facts spread throughout. Certain chapters explore background information and become the basis for future chapters or future stories he mentions. The book is organized in chronological order starting in 1901 and ending in 1939. There are three parts to the book, each explains and retells a time period during the Dust

He also claims the dust coming to major cities is karma for not helping the people in the Plains sooner. The text also states, “One man suggested laying asphalt over the prairie. Another idea was to ship junked cars to the southern plains, where they would be used as weights to hold the ground in place. At least on the Eastern seaboard, the dust came and went like a snowstorm, and then the normal seasonal fluctuations resumed.” Egan shows how the people in the cities were only willing to think of ideas to make the dust stop blowing when it started to affect them. People in the city also stopped giving suggestions once the dust left their cities. The seasons in the Plains were different to the ones in the cities because the dust controlled how much sun and heat, they would be getting. He is biased against the people living in the cities because he characterizes them as ignorant and selfish, even though some people in the city probably did care and knew of the problem that has been going on in the Great Plains for two years. The novel, “The Worst Hard Time” by Timothy Egan, gives a detailed retelling of the Dust Bowl and the people that lived through