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Dust bowl introduction
Dust bowl introduction
The great depression key concepts
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More handpicked essays just for you.
Dust bowl introduction
Dust bowl introduction
The great depression key concepts
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
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 America was hit by very bad times” (DBQ Project 1). The Dust Bowl occurred during this time on top of the Great Depression, leaving Americans in a tight situation. During this, a drought also happened, leaving many homeless and unemployed. Even then, the Dust Bowl happened because of many reasons that all tie together. The Dust Bowl was caused by farming, the drought, and technology.
It caused many people to get sick with dust pneumonia which was caused when people and the dust got into their lungs. 500 people died of dust pneumonia; there was no cure but people attempted to treat themselves with vaseline, lard, kerosene, turpentine, and skunk oil. It got so bad that they had to close schools and if you were outside too long you could suffocate or get lost in the dust storms(Morgan, Ethan, and Cole).Scholars at the University of Illinois agree with the idea that the Dust Bowl occurred to a combination of human and ecological factors, meaning that it might not of have been 100 percent preventable, but its effects could have been less severe with better farming practices. To prevent another Dust Bowl they use widespread irrigation use, which allows many farmers to buffer the effects of drought more than they would’ve been able to do in the 1930s.
“ 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.
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.
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.”
The Dust Bowl was a terrible era for America and took an extended time for recovery. It was a series of dust storms happening from 1932 to 1938 (Jones 1). Also known as the dirty thirties, the Dust Bowl was not the best time to be a farmer considering fifty million acres of farm land was destroyed ("Dust Bowl" 1). "The cause of the Dust Bowl was a mixture of natural drought and poor farming practices" (Trimarchi 1). Even though the Dust Bowl was an important part of American history, it caused much devastation and damage to the environment, people, and the economy.
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 an event that occurred in the United States of America during the 1930’s. The Dust Bowl really affected the states of Colorado, Kansas,Texas and Oklahoma, and New Mexico. The Dust Bowl was some of the worst dust storms that has ever happened in the United States of America. The Dust Bowl severely crippled the economy of the United States because a lot of the wheat that was being used was being made is the areas that were affected the worst by the dust bowl. The worst day in the history of the dust bowl was a day called Black Sunday where the entire sky was black with dirt.
The story starts off by telling you to imagine what it’d be like to live in the 1930’s when the Dust Bowl had taken effect. When dust storms came everyone in the area had to prepare quickly to withstand them. The wind combined with the dust and gravelly dirt was very strong and loud, easily getting into houses and cutting off fresh oxygen. Dust storms of the 1930’s were supposedly one of the worst natural disasters. They had affected everyone and everything in the area, so many Migrated West.
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.
The dust bowl is famous for being the worst and the longest disaster. During the event to the dust bowl farmers lost crops. Farmers also had to sell their animals because
The Dust Bowl The Dust bowl effected people in many ways such as becoming unemployed and becoming very poor and hungry. This led to many people abandoning their homes to go find jobs somewhere else. The Dust Bowl destroyed many farmers’ lives during the Great Depression.
“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.