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Causes and effects of the dust bowl
Dust bowl cause
What are the three main causes of the dust bowl
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More handpicked essays just for you.
Causes and effects of the dust bowl
Dust bowl cause
What are the three main causes of the dust bowl
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
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.
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).
The Dust Bowl was a terrible experience during a horrible time. In the 1930s post World War I America had a total collapse of the stock market causing the Great Depression affecting the economy on a global scale, but hitting hardest at home in the United States. However, the economy wasn’t the only thing that was hit hard during this time; seemingly unstoppable dust storms ravaged farming land from the west to east coast hitting hardest in the great plains in the middle section the the US became known as the Dust Bowl. The Dust Bowl was not entirely a causation of bad luck on nature, it was caused by an increasing demand for crops, advancements in farming technology, while the final nail in the coffin was a lack of rain. During World War
In the 1930s, a large dust storm destroyed the southern plains in United States and the prairies of Canada. This storm by the name of the Dust Bowl lasted 8 years and also occurred during the time of the Great Depression. The Dust Bowl shook the agriculture and the economy. People could no longer breathe easily, everybody had to wear a mask. Walking, talking and eating had become very difficult.
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.”
A drought was brought upon in California along with dry, hot winds. The winds grew increasingly strong and started what is known as the Dust Bowl in 1930. Crops were ruined and it was almost impossible to grow new ones because of how dry the soil was. The Dust Bowl created a huge burden to all farmers everywhere. Dealing with the banks and loans also contributed to the problems the farmers had to face.
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.
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.
Furthermore, growing crops was extremely difficult. Between almost half of Arkansas crops failed. By 1937, more than one out of five farmers were on federal emergency relief. At this time, “For many Americans in the 1930s, working was more than often a dream than a reality. The unemployment rate was lower than previous years reaching only 3.2 percent in 1929.
During the Great Depression a Midwestern phenomenon called the Dust Bowl affected many lives of newly settled Americans throughout the Great Plains region. Otherwise known as the “Dirty Thirties”, a storm of dry weather caused farmers and villagers to abandon their homes in hope to survive the deadly threat of the storm. The Dust Bowl was a big contributing factor to the Great Depression agriculturally, and economically. During the 1930’s America suffered extreme temperatures. A drought forming across all farm lands due to failure of successful crop rotation cause dust to form.
The dust bowl is very serious. “But in the summer of 1931, the rains disappeared. Crops withered and died. There had always been strong winds and dust on the Plains, but now over plowing created conditions for disaster. There was dust everywhere, because the people couldve worried about others than themselves.
It has been 76 years since the dust bowl had ended. The dust bowl swept across Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas throughout 1930-1940. Before the dust bowl many people traveled to these states for good land. The dust bowl was caused by a drought and strong winds. The dust from the drought was being blown around by the strong winds and covering everything.
When Roosevelt came into office he had different ideas, his New Deal began to help farmers in many aspects, including helping them refinance their homes and providing loans. ("Dust Bowl 1931-1939" 3). Government relief efforts during the 1930’s were extremely important to the survival of the economy and agricultural industry, because it was a way to keep America alive. These relief efforts gave the farmers a leg to stand on, and s protection from the banks and larger farms. Among the few positive changes in the 1930s, the change in the role of woman was the most evident.
“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.
The Federal Emergency Relief Act provided state assistance for the unemployed and their families. Rather than having large numbers of workers on the dole, Roosevelt believed in payment for the work performed to help maintain morale of recipients. This program, while being more costly, did provide work for 20 million people. Roosevelt knew that most of the government 's relief efforts got canned due to the fact that they got held up by politics.