ipl-logo

What Caused The Dust Bowl Dbq

435 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Impact of the dust bowl 1930

The two things that contributed to the start of the dust bowl are, over-farming and drought. The dust bowl was a terrible dust storm that devastated lives of thousands in the Southern Great Plains. The dust bowl occurred in the 1930’s. People called this time the blackest year.
To start, these were the conditions of the dust bowl. The dust from the storm would cover your eyes so you couldn’t see a thing. Here’s some insight from document A, “Small town printer Nate White was at the picture show when the dust reached Smith Center: as he walked out the exit, it was as if someone had put a blindfold over his eyes; he bumped into telephone poles, skinned his shins on boxes and cans in the alleyway, fell to his hands and knees, and crawled along the curbing to a dim houselight…” Wildlife was greatly affected as well. They …show more content…

By the late 1920’s, his harvest was up to ten thousand bushels of wheat - a small mountain of grain.” This is a bad thing because “grass is a lifeline”. According to document B, “Grass is what counts. It’s what saves us all - far as we get saved… Grass is what holds the Earth together.” what this means is that Grass helps with a lot of things. Grass has roots, those roots keep the dirt tied to the Earth’s floor. When grass is pulled up the dust has nothing to stick to. When a gust of wind blows across that dirt it carries it into the air, creating a dust storm.
Another cause of the dust bowl is drought. According to document E, In the 1930’s there were nine years of below average rainfall. The average rainfall is 20 inches. The average annual rainfall of the five dust bowl towns was 17 inches. Those three inches made a drought possible.
To conclude, over-farming and drought caused the dust bowl. Maybe the dust bowl could have been avoided if people hadn’t over-farmed land but the drought may not have had the ability to be

Show More
Related
363 Words | 2 Pages

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).

Read More
768 Words | 4 Pages

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.

Read More
536 Words | 3 Pages

The drought heavily affected farming and made the problem worse. The drought of the 1890s drove away farmers; similarly, the drought must have driven off people as farming was a means to live (DBQ Project 3). This would leave unattended farms where grass wouldn’t grow back on, leaving an easy supply of dirt for the Dust Bowl. Similarly, Document E shows in the charts that the Dust Bowl towns were all under the

Read More
350 Words | 2 Pages

Devastation pervaded the decade of the 1930s, which left many people struggling with hardships. High unemployment and homelessness rate preceded the nation. This destruction became known as the Dust Bowl. During the Dust Bowl, high winds referred to as the black blizzards wreaked havoc on the land. A principal, infamous author, Donald Worster, demonstrates in his book, “Dust Bowl The Southern Plains in the 1930s” the living conditions and obstacles people had faced along with the various explanations for the Dust Bowl.

Read More
748 Words | 3 Pages

The 120,000 square-mile area the Dust Bowl destroyed was Kansas, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma and Colorado. The Dust Bowl was a name given to the Great Plains region that was struck with a drought in the 1930’s. Before the Depression, many of the farmers in the Great Plains were over producing wheat due to the war. Farmers plowed more land and removed grass in order to make more room for their crops. Then the Depression hit and the demand for wheat decreased.

Read More
811 Words | 4 Pages

“ The story highlights a very real and relatable experience about a family driven out of their home due to economic hardship and drought. Also known as “The Dirty Thirties,” the Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms causing major agricultural damage to the American west—especially the Oklahoma panhandle area, Kansas, and northern Texas. Farming methods at the time contributed to the severity of the problem. The arrival of farmers to the Great Plains created conditions for significant soil erosion during naturally occurring periods of cool sea surface water temperatures that regulate precipitation. “ http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/dustbowl/legacy/ 3.

Read More
1077 Words | 5 Pages

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.

Read More
337 Words | 2 Pages

The drought killed the grass which made the soil lack the roots as an anchor, “So the winds easily picked up the loose topsoil and swirled it into dense dust clouds, called black blizzards”(“Dust Bowl”). This dust wasn't just destructive it was also deadly. The dust could kill if people inhaled enough of it. The dust was more deadly to infants and elderly people.

Read More
192 Words | 1 Pages

The Stage: What were some natural or environmental factors that led to the Dust Bowl? Average of 20 inches of rain or less per year. Kansas is a very windy state. There was no natural land forms to stop the wind. Buffalo grass held the dirt together.

Read More
559 Words | 3 Pages

The Dust Bowl was caused by dust drying up from the drought and the high winds making a huge dust “monster”. Static electricity builds between the dust and helps the dust “monster” grow. The heat, high winds, and no rain just added to the static electricity and made it worse. The Dust Bowl contained 350,000,000 tons of dirt. With all that dirt and static electricity, the “monster” destroyed everything in it's path.

Read More
979 Words | 4 Pages

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.

Read More
586 Words | 3 Pages

In conclusion, after the storm there was lots of dust everywhere that caused it to be hard to survive and provide for your family. The Drought and Storm were the main things in the Dust Bowl. Blauvelt states in his article, “Although the reasons behind this drought are not fully understood, recent research suggests a change in the jet stream and ocean currents may have made critical alterations to atmospheric circulation and moisture patterns”(Blauvelt). He also talks about how the dust blocked out the sun, traffic was everywhere, and there was so much dirt that it could be measured in inches penetrated into every home in the area (Blauvelt). Blauvelt also says the Dow 2 Black Sunday gave the Dust Bowl its name, so it's a main part of how the Dust Bowls name was created (Blauvelt).

Read More
912 Words | 4 Pages

“Dry land farming on the Great Plains led to the systematic destruction of the prairie grasses. In the ranching regions, overgrazing also destroyed large areas of grassland. Gradually, the land was laid bare, and significant environmental

Read More
96 Words | 1 Pages

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.

Read More
1291 Words | 6 Pages

Nature’s delicate balance of wind, rain, and grass had been disturbed by human settlement. Fifty years earlier, a strong protective carpet of grass had covered the Great Plains. The grass held moisture in the soil and kept the soil from blowing away (Holley).” Before the Great Plains were settled, its geography was covered in lush grasses that made it perfect for farming and raising livestock. As the population grew and more and more people settled there, the grass was removed so that they could farm the land.

Read More

More about What Caused The Dust Bowl Dbq

Related Topics

Open Document