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The Worst Hard Time Analysis

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The book The Worst Hard Time was written in three parts; “The Promise”, “Betrayal”, and “Blowup”. In the introduction of “The Promise: The Great Plowup” it takes the reader on a quick journey of the Southern Plains towns in the area that was affected by the dust bowl. A few survivors shared their stories about life during the tragedy. In this section the important topics are introduced; ethnic tension, soul-searching, shame, a path to redemption, and settlement problems. This section follows a few settlers who had to live in a place that gives nothing back. This section also talks about the American dream and hope and having to deal with having no money to support their families. Section one ends with wheat prices declining, the stock market crash, and the first dust storm. …show more content…

The government gave the people the land they needed to grow their wheat but shortly after both their land and their wheat prices shriveled up. Causing the people to have no food or money and now the environment seemed to be giving them a beating. The land was now being swept away and becoming a part of the storm. It was becoming harder for people to support their families and keep their dignity. These people also had to face the realization of the declining fortunes. Section three, “Blowup”, describes the struggles of the people on the southern plains. Dust storms have been worsening and have gained the east’s attention. People were contracting “dust pneumonia”, an infection of the lungs that causes fever, chest pain, difficulty breathing, and coughing, birth rates declined, and Roosevelt made new programs to help the southerners. These programs were known as the Soil Conservation Districts and the Farm Security Administration. Many of the towns still have not recovered from these storms.

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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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John Steinbeck has been a pillar of American literature for decades. His work, especially Grapes of Wrath and The Harvest Gypsies, helped to shed light on some of the issues that plagued California, and the rest of the United States during the Great Depression. His works accentuate the theme of the importance of community, especially when those with the power to help don 't. These novels take place during the Great Depression, a time when there were very few jobs, little stability, widespread poverty, and diminished hopes for the future. This era sets the stage on which these stories take place. During these harsh times, many people turned to the government or banks for help, but they were turned down by the banks because they wanted a profit, or they bankrupted, and the government 's resources were stretched so low they could only help few people.

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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

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The tone of chapter 11 in John Steinbeck's, “The Grapes of Wrath,” is sympathetic, sad and hopeless. His word choice and syntax show how the sad houses were left to decay in the weather. His use of descriptive words paints a picture in the reader's mind. As each paragraph unfolds, new details come to life and adds to the imagery. While it may seem unimportant, this intercalary chapter shows how the effects of the great depression affected common households.

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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

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This shows how bad the businesses were doing during that time. It impacted people so much that it even impacted that way they lived. For example, parents would send their kids out on the streets to beg for food because there was limitation of food sources you could get. This situation also impacted the farmers on the country side. Like even though, the farmers could grow their own food, they had machinery and land mortgages that they couldn’t pay.

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This meant that the land owners were making money by doing nothing, and that the poorer farmers that could not afford their own land, could grow and sell their crops for cheaper. Sometimes the land

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The air was filled with dust and dirt. Many mammals died from swallowing and breathing too much dust and dirt. It was during the Great Depression so animals were valued. Animals gave them money from their milk and meat. The Dust Bowl lasted a terrible ten years that changed many people's lives.

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After a period of time in the Dust Bowl the land was bare and could no longer be used for planting or farming and it was just sand. People’s personal lives were affected dreadfully. “The simplest acts of life — breathing, eating a meal, taking a walk — were no longer simple.”. The Dust Bowl was a eerie era caused by poor farming and a race for money, America hopes it will not happen

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

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The amount sand and dirt in the air interfered with human health and it damaged the air quality. When the dust storms would go by, the name or phrase would be “Black Blizzards” because of how dark it would become outside. Even though, the dust storm was in the states like Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado, sometimes dust piles were spotted in places like Washington D.C, and New York. However, the dust piles in New York and Washington D.C looked like snowdrifts. After the tremendous disaster, President Roosevelt made programs where farmers would have to learn how to conserve the soil and practicing how to sustain their farms.

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At the end of World War 1, the United States has a hard time making the switch to a peace time economy and the country slips into a recession. The prices of crops have dropped so low farmers are having a hard time making ends meet. And then the stock market crashes and the depression hits. To add to the problems the farmers are having trying to make enough money to survive, in 1931 a drought hits in the southern and plains states. The farmers had bought tractors to plow up more and more land in order to have a large enough crop to survive.

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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.

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