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The Dust Bowl: An Economic Disaster

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The Dust Bowl is considered to be the worst economic disaster in United States history. The Dust Bowl negatively affected people in an economic way.The dust bowl was so devastating that it ruined the U.S. economy, destroyed homes and farms, and forced people out of their homes and the only life they ever knew.

The Dust Bowl ruined the U.S economy.The 1988–89 drought was the most economically devastating natural disaster in the history of the United States (Economics of the Dust Bowl).The U.S has had many economic disasters and if the dust bowl was considered the worst of those disasters that means the economic effects were devastating. Even though the exact economic losses are not known for this time period, they were substantial enough …show more content…

The frontiers of farming made the area more susceptible to soil erosion which blew dust that made people sick from dust pneumonia (Noel Sander).Illnesses would often last for a long time because there was no one there to treat the sick.Wind driven dust storms had appeared in a large number of counties in western Kansas and the. Dust storms had arisen in Oklahoma and Texas panhandles on several occasions between 1933 and 1935, each time filling the air with millions of tons of …show more content…

Carloads, caravans, homeless and hungry; twenty thousand and fifty thousand and a hundred thousand and two hundred thousand. They streamed over the mountains, hungry and restless--restless as ants, scurrying to find work to do--to lift, to push, to pick, to cut--anything, any burden to bear, for food.”(John Steinbeck).This quote written by author John Steinbeck described the flight of families from the Dust Bowl and further proved the point that the Dust Bowl forced people out of their homes making them start their lives over.Initially, the depression hit the state hard. 29% of the workforce was unemployed by 1933—same as Oklahoma. California has made significant improvements after President Roosevelt’s New Deal in 1933.It wasn’t long until unskilled laborers in the Midwest heard about a daily earning of $3 to $4 (Noel Sander).$3 to $4 still isn't much but it more than most laborers had seen in a long time.Thee extra funds helped families grow and

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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 dust bowl was considered the “Worst hard time” in american history. The Dust Bowl was a big cloud of dust that took place during the 1930’s in the middle of the Great Depression. The dust bowl was located in the southern great plains as it affected states like Kansas, Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado. The three main causes of the Dust Bowl were drought (Doc E), amount of land being harvest (Doc D), and the death shortgrass prairie (Doc C).

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Some of the states severely affected were Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado. Cattle became blinded during dust storms and ran around in circles, inhaling dust, until they fell and died, their lungs caked with dust and mud. Newborn calves suffocated. Three reasons for the Dust Bowl: Loss Of shortgrass prairie, mechanization of farming and lack of rainfall. The Dust Bowl was caused by the loss of short prairie grass.

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This over farming diminished the nutrients in the ground and removed all of the grass and sod holding the dirt in place which resulted in it creating the giant dust storms. Storms like this have happened in the past but not to the same degree. He mentions how the climate in the Southern Plains is problematic as there is little rain and every so many years there are big storms that tear throughout the area. The difference between the storms that occurred before the Dust Bowl, is that there was grass and sod keeping the soil in place instead of just bare earth with shallow roots for anything that managed to cover the earth. Worster claims capitalism and the farming practices are responsible for this as the farmers strive to make a profit without caring about the state of the land is in.

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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 Dust Storm Black Sunday” elucidates descriptive importance and affects of the Dust Bowl in the early 20th century. The authors provide some insight into the concept of what is causing the disastrous dust storms, taking a serious approach to the realities of people exposing to the Dust. Families living in the south struggle to survive in a harsh condition; with limited resources and health problems, so much damage was done to the land that drought hit the area and there was nothing anyone could do to stop the disaster. After the drought ended by the 1940s a wide range of migration took place in the south that led people to migrate to California. This information led into deeper understanding and further knowledge about the Dust bowl and

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During the Dust Bowl, the dust became a serious threat to health and life .When dust entered the lunge, the moisture them it into mud that attached to the organ. Many people suffered from breathing problems especially children. Livestock also suffered from the dusty air and many died from such unbearable environmental conditions. Scientist predicted that the illness resulted invisible microorganisms such as bacteria or germs that lived and multiplied in dust rather from the dusty clouds.

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

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The dust bowl is famous for being the worst and the longest disaster. During the event to the dust bowl farmers lost crops. Farmers also had to sell their animals because

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405 Words | 2 Pages

The Dust Bowl of the 1930 's caused devastation for the mid-west at the time. It went on in Oklahoma,Texas,New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas; however, slimmer areas were actually affected by the Dust Bowl like the Oklahoma panhandle, the Texas panhandle, the Northeast of New Mexico, the Southeast of Colorado, and the western third of Kansas. The drought that caused the Dust Bowl affected about 27 states and covered about 75% of the country. It was in April of 1934 that Black Sunday, the worst storm of the Dust Bowl, occurred. Shortly after President Franklin D. Roosevelt passed the Conservation Act.

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Surviving the dust bowl, many people left since the living conditions were so harsh. Some people tried to stay but in the end they had to leave since they lost their land in bank foreclosures. By 1940 about 2.5 million people have moved to the flatland; of those 200,000 moved to California. Landing in California, the migrants were confronted with an existence practically as troublesome as the one they had cleared out. The dust bowl exodus was the largest migration in American history.

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“With the gales came the dust. Sometimes it was so thick that it completely hid the sun. Visibility ranged from nothing to fifty feet, the former when the eyes were filled with dirt which could not be avoided, even with goggles ”( Richardson 59). The Dust Bowl was a huge dust storm in the 1930s that stretched from western Kansas to New Mexico. People that lived in that area could not step outside or they would get dust in their lungs.

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During the “dirty thirties”, people in the Great Plains region of the United States greatly suffered. Dust storms wreaked havoc on the dry land and people barely got by with next to nothing to call their own. Out of all the natural disasters in America’s history, The Dust Bowl was one of the worst. There was a miscellany of reasons for the deficient environment and economy of the Dust Bowl. People living in the Dust Bowl region faced agony and distress during this trying time.

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1934 Words | 8 Pages

The first dust blizzard was in 1931.And there was also a drought in 1931-1939 that dried the area. It was said that it got up to 115°f. In 1939 during the fall rain came bring the end of the drought. And with the coming of world war two, pulling the country out of the great depression that made to plains golden with wheat once again. The natural weather blew the loose topsoil into

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