The Dust Bowl, or the Dirty Thirties, was a period of time during the Depression in the 1930s. The Dust Bowl consists of several severe dust storms causing major damage to the environment and farm lands to the American and Canadian prairie lands. During the drought of the 1930s, the soil turned to dust because there was not any natural deep rooted grass to keep it in place. Once the soil was turned to dust the wind carried it eastward and southward in large dark clouds, which blackened the sky. The dark black cloud would reach cities on the East Coast, such as New York and Washington, D.C. The Atlantic Ocean was the final spot where most of the soil ended up deposited in the Atlantic Ocean, carried by strong winds which were created by the dry and bare soil conditions. These terrible dust storms which terrorized many people changing their lives were given names such as "black blizzards" and "black rollers" and they often reduced visibility to just a few feet. The Dust Bowl affected millions of acres of land changing many people lives, causing many to relocate, and other to try to survive, it was possibly the greatest natural disaster of its times. “The Dust Bowl got it name after Black Sunday, April 14, 1935. More and more dust storms had blown up in years leading to that day. In 1932, 14 dust storms were recorded on the Plains. In 1933, there were 38 storms. By 1943, it was estimated that 100 mill acres of farmland had lost all or most of the topsoil to the wind. By April 1935, there had been weeks of dust storms, but the cloud that appeared on the horizon that Sunday was the worst. Winds were clocked at 60 mph.” (Ganzel, www.livinghistoryfarm.org,“Farming in the 1930”).
Many were left homeless while others homes had to be torn down due to the damage the Dust Bowl dust storms had cause. Some people survived the great storms, they migrated west looking for work other found home in Kansas and Oklahoma, and other fell ill and died of dust pneumonia or malnutrition. The Dust Bowl evacuation was the largest migration in American history. “By 1940, 2.5 million people had moved out of the Plains states; of those, 200,000 moved to California. With their land barren and homes seized in foreclosure, many farm families were forced to leave. Migrants left farms in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, Colorado and New Mexico.”(Scott and Kelly, Route 66, A Photographic Essay).
The many dust storms of the Dust Bowl had caused acres of farmland to be damaged, and hundreds of thousands of people were affected. Many families from Oklahoma (often known as "Okies," since so many came from Oklahoma) migrated to California and other states, where the conditions economically were a little better. Then owning no land, many became migrant workers traveling from farm to farm to pick fruit and other crops at starvation wages.
Hugh Bennett, a farmer that survived, talked spoke of what he did to preserve soil. He was reforming farming practices. In the early 1900s Hugh Bennett joined The Department of Agriculture he wanted to address the problems the depletion of land. In 1909, The Bureau of Soil made an announcement, “The soil is the one indestructible, immutable asset that the nation possesses. It is the one resource that cannot be exhausted; that cannot be used up.” In 1933 Hugh was made director of the newly formed Soil Erosion Service, they worked to combat erosion caused by dust storms by dust storms. They reformed farming methods Hugh announced a calling for “a tremendous national awakening to the need for action in bettering our agricultural practices.” He gained the support of Congress they put weight behind the Soil Conservation Act of 1935, which focused on improving farming techniques.
According to Timothy Egan untold stories in “The Worst Hard Times”, the Osteen tell their account of the storms and the struggle for air. In the winter of 1935, everybody in the Osteen dugout became sick with cough, raw throats and red eyes that itch all the time. The storms blocked the sun for four days, although it was never completely dark, and packed winds strong enough to knock a person down. The dust storm that affected the area they were living in forced their family to stay inside for three of those days.
The Dust Bowl affected millions of acres of land changing many people lives, causing many to relocate and other to try to survive; it was possibly the greatest natural disaster of its time. The Dustbowl of the 1930s caused an economical strain on many families. Many people had to move, many died and many survived. This storm damage acres and acres of land destroying agriculture. The Dustbowl did not leave much hope in the time of already the Depression. Many untold stories in “The Worst Hard Time” give voices to those who lived it. The Dustbowl is a part of our history and possible makes America what it is today.

Egan, T. (2006). The Worst Hard Time. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/biography/dustbowl-bennett/ http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org http.//www.henstringphotography.com - (FHP Newsletter, Vol 2, No. 16, Route 66 Fourth Installment