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
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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