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 severe dust storms that happened in three waves. These dust storms occurred in 1934, 1936, and 1939 - 1940. The Dust storms were centered in a 150 thousand square area. This area stretched from the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles to the neighboring states of Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico. The extensive deep plowing of the topsoil in the Great Plains during the previous decade was the main factor for these storms.
Timothy Egan called the Dust Bowl "the worst hard times As the nation was hit with its worst economic disaster, the country was hit with its worst ecological disaster as well. Over 300 dust storms or dusters hit the Southern Great Plains during the 1930s. The hardest hit areas were theOklahoma and Texas panhandles. The land became almost uninhabitable, and over two million people left their homes throughout the course of the dust bowl in search of a new life elsewhere. Many ended up nearly starved to death and homeless.
The Dust Bowl was located in southeastern Colorado, southwestern Kansas, and the panhandles of Oklahoma and Texas. The Dust Bowl started in the year of 1931 and lasted a decade. The Dust Bowl caused many things. It damaged the ecology and the agriculture. It also killed many people.
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.
The Dust Bowl: Between 1930 to 1940, in the southwestern region of the United States, as wheat had become in more and more high demand, Farmers began producing wheat at a much higher rate. Slowly more farmers were plowing fields which made the land basically bare because of all the dry fields. At the same time, some stronger winds were beginning to occur and a drought had come in the region. The fast winds kicked up all the dry dirt from the fields and sent it through the air creating clouds of dust soaring through the air. Nineteen states were affected by this dustbowl.
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.
Simple necessities such as cooking, eating, bathing, and even walking to a neighborhood store became difficult. In the eight years of the dusty drought, the soils that farmers valued most were depleted and damaged. Here’s why. The Dust Bowl occurred in the Great Plains of America, specifically harming Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Texas, and New Mexico. There were four waves of droughts, but often times the people did not have healing time to recover for their losses.
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.
The Dust Bowl was a devastating environmental disaster that occurred during the Great Depression. Severe drought coupled with poor agricultural practices in the Great Plains resulted in massive dust storms that darkened skies and destroyed crops and homes. This disaster had a significant impact on the quality of life for people living in the affected areas. The dust storms caused not only problems to the surroundings but to the people as well, as many suffered respiratory and eye problems making it difficult to breathe or see. This coupled with the fact there was no healthcare due to the market crash it was very difficult for people to get the help they needed.
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.
“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.
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.
