Talks about how bad the dust bowl was and the causes and effects of it

1. Dust Bowl
By: Grayson Barber

2. Causes of the Dust Bowl
This was a time in the 1930’s where there was a severe period where dust storms came and
destroyed the agriculture of many farms in America. This was mainly in the middle of the
United States, for example Kansas and Oklahoma. Failure of using dryland farming methods
was the cause of this horrible outbreak of dust storms that ruined farmers and their families
lives. More causes of this were farmers had to lower prices of crops, business produced more
things than consumers could afford, the national debt was high and then the stock market
crashed which was a big blow to society.

3. How bad were dust storms
Strong winds would blow farmlands and the loose soil would blow up causing black dust
storms to form. They were 4 miles high and traveled as far as 3 thousand miles. On April 14,
1935 the worst dust storm ever hit the states in the dust bowl area. People were forced to stay
indoors and it destroyed everything in its path, that day is now known as “Black Sunday”. The
storms were not always as bad as that one but many storms were always destroying farmland
putting people out of business.

4. Effects of dust bowl
The mix of drought, terrible farmland, and dust storms caused many people to lose everything
they had. Which includes their houses for where their families lived, caused their livestock to
starve and die and lastly their crops to parishe. Many farmers needed help and that when
FDR’s new deal addressed the Dust Bowl and how he would help them. It was on 1935 when
the Soil Conservation Service was created where they came up with crop rotation and planting
shelter belts. Crop rotation was were farmers planted a different crop every other season so
that disease and insects from settling in the area. A shelterbelt where a large area of trees or
bushes is put in front of the crops so that the wind cannot blow up the wind.

5. Migrating West
The ideas FDR came up with were great, but it took time for the shelterbelt to take effect. The
trees didn’t have enough time time to grow so that caused more dust storms to keep on
forming. After all of that all farmers officially lost everything and packed up their belongings
and moved west. Most people to route 66 to California where they been promised better
opportunities like picking fruit and working the fields. But little did the people know that
California did not escape the great depression either. Large corporations owned farmland and
controlled the employment. There were already plenty of local people to work the fields so
migrantes who came to California to find work were out of luck.

6. Living in the West
People lived in cardboard shacks or tents without water or electricity. Most were hungry or
grew sick from the living conditions. Farm companies did not help the needy instead they used
this time to increase prices to get more since they knew food and water were in high demand.
In the book “The Grapes of Wrath” the author expressed his rage for how the people in
California were treated. People soon realized that people were treated bad but FBI leader said
that this was an exaggeration. But first lady Eleanor Roosevelt went and visited/toured the
places these people lived in and told the truth of how bad it was, that soon silenced the critics.
But then by 1941 the drought was over.