...The Roaring Twenties offered a time of prosperity, growth, and happiness. Only years ago, the effects of World War One had passed, and dreams of a brighter future emerged. In 1928, the unemployment rate sat at just four percent (Pascal 1). This meant that for every 100 people, only four did not hold a job. Citizens became comfortable with spending more money on luxuries, such as cars, which had become cheaper. Lower income families could now purchase them and drive on the better, updated roads alongside the newly constructed telephone lines. People began to gravitate toward cities and a new light was shed on the public after the dark days of war. However, an unknown storm was brewing, and less than a decade later all classes of Americans would...
Words: 1942 - Pages: 8
...The Okies/Migrants The Dust Bowl was a time of hard work, sacrifice, and most of all: sadness. The Dust Bowl occurred in the 1930's and was a time of great depression when droughts had struck the Great Plains in America. These droughts dramatically effected farmers in Oklahoma and Texas, and other neighboring areas, and eventually lead to farmers being forced off of their land in search of work in the West (“History”). These farmers who migrated to the West were formally known as “Okies”, a nickname given to them by Californians. Therefore, the Okies played a significant role during the dust bowl due to the incredible amounts of people who migrated to places, such as California, the hardships they experienced during the Dust Bowl era, and the long journey it took to find work in the West. Certainly, Okies experienced the most heartache and difficulties during the period of the severe droughts that struck America. Something that really catches the eye...
Words: 1347 - Pages: 6
...country was struggling with the actual effects of the Great Depression, but in the wheat country, farmers were gaining a record breaking crop. With the beginning of World War I, the call for wheat had been beyond belief. Farmers were paid record prices. As a result, to the farmer, it made sense to turn every inch of the Southern Plains into profit. When the war was going on, the land produced millions of bushels of wheat and corn, which helped to feed America as well as several countries overseas. Farming practices that made the plains so creative were beginning to take a toll on the land. The grasslands was deeply plowed and planted. During the years when there was sufficient rainfall, the land manufactured plentiful crops. Though, as a drought that started in the early 1930s continued, farmers kept plowing and planting with gradually dreary outcomes. In the years 1930 and 1931, Oklahoma and Texas panhandles were known as the wealthiest states in the country. For plains farmers, the era opened with prosperity and growth. In the summer of 1931, the farmers challenged the most difficult eight years of their lives. The rain was finally over. It took a thousand years for Nature to build an inch of topsoil on the Southern Plains, but it took only minutes for one good blow to sweep it all away. The water level of lakes dropped by five feet or more and the wind picked up the dry soil that had nothing to hold it down. Black clouds of dust started to splotch out the sun. There...
Words: 642 - Pages: 3
...Daniel xxxxxxxxx Professor xxxxx History 102 5/17/2015 The Dust Bowl During the 1930’s our country was going through some tough times economically which was known as the “Great Depression”. To make things worse the farmland of America was experiencing what became known as the dust bowl. The Dust Bowl lasted for about a decade and it significantly impacted the southern plains. The northern plains were not hit as hard, but they still experienced major drought, strong winds and saw a big decline in their agricultural industry. The Dust Bowl is also responsible for many Americans leaving and moving from the southern plains. For nearly 10 years a yellowish brown dust from the southern plains and a black wall of dust from the northern plains swept through the heart of our country. This made everyday life in this region extremely difficult. Simple acts such as breathing, eating, and even talking while walking were no longer so simple. Mothers were forced to make their children wear dust mask to and from school, wet sheets were hung in front of windows in an effort to stop the dirt from entering their homes. Many farmers were defeated and slowly watched all their crops blow away (About the Dust Bowl). It was best stated by John Steinbeck in the novel “The Grapes of Wrath” “And then the dispossessed were drawn west from Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico; from Nevada and Arkansas, families, tribes, dusted out, tractored out. Car loads, caravans, homeless and hungry; twenty thousand...
Words: 1067 - Pages: 5
...Rebecca Greene Ms. Massengill English I Block 4 23 September 2015 (change) The Dust Bowl: The Impact on Economic Prosperity for Blacks and Whites America’s Economy took a hard hit from the infamous Dust Bowl. The Dust Bowl occurred during the Great Depression, one of the greatest economical hardships in American History. The Dust Bowl increased the power of the economical tragedy. Food became unaffordable as a result of the Great Depression, and then became even more scarce because of the dust bowl, causing Americans to have very little energy to fight back. The Dust Bowl also caused health problems and respiratory illnesses for many victims, including the Brown Plague, delaying the progress to fix America’s economy. Money was spent towards...
Words: 290 - Pages: 2
...Introduction Written by John Steinbeck in 1939, “The Grapes of Wrath” is an in-depth look at how economic forces of the time had a tragic effect on the lives of the working class. The story and examples of the five economic structures are told, as the Joad family travels to seek a new life in California. The novel details how the economic changes that were taking place impacted the Joads and the people of Oklahoma, making them desperate to find a new life. Forced from their homes and land, they hoped that migrating west would allow them to find work, allowing them to provide for their families. Steinbeck shows in detail how economic forces and externalities, can affect the lives of individuals, families, communities, and the nation. While...
Words: 455 - Pages: 2
...Great Depression The Great Depression had a tremendous effect on the people of this Dark Age in the United States. Throughout these tough times people faced many hardships such as increases in crime, the stock market crash and the Dust Bowl. These events were all results of the Great Depression and also had huge impacts on people’s lives. Beginning of the Great Depression The Depression began in the year 1929 and was a result of the ending of the First World War. The United States was sending aid to Europe in recovery but this resulted in an over extension of credit and spending in the 1920’s. This over extension was a direct cause that led to the “most dramatic economic event in United States history”. No other depression had such a devastating impact on the United States society. Throughout the twelve years of the Great Depression, one quarter of the work force were unemployed, 5,500 banks closed and 32,000 businesses went bankrupt (“Great Depression”). Stock Market Crash On the infamous day known as Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929 the stock market crashed. The only thing was that no one was thinking anything could go wrong because a little over a month before the market had reached a 10-year high price. From then on the prices slowly decreased causing confusion, apprehension, and uncertainty began to set into all investors big and small (Galbraith 1). A couple of days before Black Tuesday a day known as Black Thursday was when people really started to notice...
Words: 1167 - Pages: 5
...The Dust Bowl transpired during the 1930's. The Dust Bowl consisted of gigantic dust storms that destroyed many farms and homes. The Dust Bowl caused many farmers to lose their land due to it destroying it. There were many effects of the Dust Bowl. For instance, in the video "History Brief: Dust Bowl" it explains the effects it caused. Farmlands had many new advances that would help them farm. They had tractors & plowing tools. After the Dust Bowl, farmers had new ideas to use different technology or techniques so they can better prepare for new Dust storms that may transpire in the future. Moving on, in document A, Caroline Henderson described the experiences she faced while living in Oklahoma. (Document A) She explained how Dust to eat was...
Words: 293 - Pages: 2
...For about a decade the dust kept blowing in Oklahoma, smothering and filling up every crevice in homes (www.history.com). Furthermore, the Dust Bowl covered the Western part of Oklahoma starting in the 1930s, due to a long drought and erosion the topsoil on the Southern Plains began to blow away, carried on for miles and miles to create a dust storm (livinghistoryfarm.org). The Homestead Act of 1862, the Kinkaid Act of 1904, and the Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909 all led many settlers into Oklahoma (www.history.com). Most of these settlers farmed for a living when they moved into Oklahoma, which was still a Territory at the time. Before the 1930s wheat prices raised in the 1910s and 1920s, consequently, causing many farmers to plow up the grassland...
Words: 1786 - Pages: 8
...causing a dust storm called the dust bowl. This affected the agriculture in the United States during the 20th century. Both the government and farmers tried to address the situation with farmer loans and smaller crops. The dust bowl lasted 10 long years and it could very well happen again. Overall the Great Depression majorly affected the people in the southern plains. During the 20th century the United States agriculture changed from good to bad. Before the dust bowl the agriculture was successful, there was enough rain and the...
Words: 754 - Pages: 4
...The Dust Bowl, an event that will live in infamy. It terrorized American farmers and affected nearly everyone in America. It wrecked homes destroyed towns and also messed with the economy. This made the Dust Bowl a challenging time in American history. It dramatically affected American lives, caused the economy to go into a downward spiral, and created political disorder. So I decided to write this paper informing you about the tragedy that the dust bowl caused for American culture. I have split my paper into five parts. In the first part I will explain how the dust bowl affected farming. The second part will be about the affect the dust bowl had on how it affected american society and the devastation it caused families. The third part will...
Words: 980 - Pages: 4
...The Dust Bowl SWOOSH! BOOM! The rocks are hittin houses banging on windows.What is happening? The year of 1930 there this storm that killed mostly about 7 thousand people. This storm was called the “The Dust Bowl”.The dust bowl was a serious storm it affected a lot of people especially children. This storm had spread all over a good section of the great plains of the united states that had also extended over Southern Colorado,Southwestern Kansas the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma,and now New Mexico. The Dust bowl was known as the “Dirty Thirties”, because it happened in the 1930’s and its main supporter was the dirt so it was basically a storm made mostly of dirt. In 1932 there was about 14 storms on the great plains. Some reasons that may have caused the dust bowl were over-farming, livestock overgrazing, droughts, and poor-farming practices. More than 100 million acres was destroyed while this storm was happening. The Dust gots it’s name after the black Sunday that was on April 14, 1935....
Words: 594 - Pages: 3
...Name Professor Course Date The Dust Bowl The Dust Bowl refers to the 1930 period when adverse storms resulted in socio-economic and ecological destruction to the Canadian and American economies. The disaster lasted for six years, from 1930 to 1936, but in some areas, it lasted till 1940. The extent of Dust Bowl’s impacts intensified in North America following the event’s concurrence with the Great American Depression. States affected by the weather adversities included the Canadian South, South Eastern region of Montana, South Western parts of North Dakota, and Texas, North Eastern regions of Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico, and major regions of South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma. The causative factors for the development of the Dust Bowl were attributed to two main factors; drought and famine condition in existing in Central America and poor farming methods on the vast dry lands from the Canadian prairies in the South to the US, acreage of over 400,000 km2 (Langston-George, 2015). Based on Dust Bowl’s historical naure, it is imperative to understand the causes, characteristics, impact and draw future lessons to mitigate such occurrences in the human and physical environment. Characteristics of the Dust Bowl The Dust bowl region lies on the west side of the 100th meridian. The elevation of the plains was estimated to be 760m on the east side and 1800m to the west. The erosion and drought affected a geographical coverage of about 100,000,000acres. The climatic...
Words: 3039 - Pages: 13
...The reason why I say the narrative piece would be more influential to American people is because only in ‘ The Grapes of Wrath can a reader get a glimpse about how the Dust Bowl truly affected families and induce empathy for the Joad family. When looking at ‘The Harvest Gypsies’, American people are only able to really see just the factual side of things and may not see how those facts played a role in the everyday lives of some workers. For example in ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ readers get a glimpse into just how the current crisis is affecting families when Timothy remarks “ We seen ‘em too. An’ they ain’t much work...I get so goddamn tired jus’ figgerin’ how to eat” which shows how hard it is to find a well paying job, let alone a job itself to support a person or family. Generally throughout ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ there are instances where the injustices of the Dust Bowl situation may hit home harder than any nonfiction piece could convey as is seen where it was clear everyone was against the migrants and would take any opportunity to dehumanize them. The latter is demonstrated in chapter 18 of ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ where it is mentioned “Well, you and me got sense. Them goddamn Okies hot no sense and no feeling. They ain’t human...They ain’t a hell of a lot...
Words: 1208 - Pages: 5
...Howard ES 110G The Dust Bowl April, 28, 2014 The Dust Bowl The dust bowl happened in the 30’s. It was a period of severe drought. Severe drought and wind erosion ravaged the Great Plains for a decade. The drought damaged the agriculture and the environment in a detrimental way. Because of the drought and the farmers not using dry land farming methods at the time to prevent wind erosion during the dust bowl. The farmers had plowed the soil before the dust bowl disrupting the grasses that would have normally kept the soil in place during high winds. Excessive cultivation of the land in the 1930s exposed dry soil to the wind. The water that was in the ground no longer soaked in it just ran off because there were no roots to help it soak into the ground. When the winds blew it turned the soil into dust that blew everywhere. The dust storms were called “black blizzards”. Visibility was greatly reduced during these times of high wind and made it very hard for people to see in front of them. The drought and erosion of the Dust Bowl affected many people and a lot of land was compromised. The dust storms greatly degraded the productivity of the soil. People’s health was hindered greatly by breathing in all of the dust and particles in it. The air quality was horrible making it unbearable to live in those circumstances. Families had to leave their homes because they couldn’t breathe with the dust getting into their lungs. They were getting pneumonia from the dust in their lungs....
Words: 1179 - Pages: 5
