...During the early 1930’s America had struck poverty, but for the people living in the central plains of the United States had other challenges to face as well. Along with the nationwide depression, these people had to overcome an eight-year drought. This drought brought huge dust storms that lasted from 1931-1939 and had prolonged the Great Depression. For the people living during this time the struggle to live forced many out of their homes, towns, and even state. The Dust Bowl not only prolonged the Great Depression and forced many people to become homeless, but affected them for the rest of their lives. The Dust Bowl affected southern Colorado, southern Kansas, northern Oklahoma, northern Texas, and northeast New Mexico from 1931 to 1939....
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...The Dust Bowl is an area of land where plants stop growing and soil turns into dust, mainly caused by poor farming techniques. In 1931, the midwestern and southern plains began experiencing severe droughts and crop damages. These crop damages were caused by “black blizzards.” A black blizzard is when the soil dried, then turned to dust and blew to the east and south in large dark clouds. Dust storms were caused by drought and overused land. In some places the dust would drift like snow, covering cities and farms. These dark clouds would leave well sealed homes covered in dust. By 1932, there were fourteen dust storms reported. In 1933 when Franklin Roosevelt became president, he declared a fourday bank holiday. During this time, the Congress...
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...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....
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...Dust Bowl:The Southern Plains in the 1930’s The Southern Plains Dust Bowl covered more than 100 million acres, coming from the East Coast, States that are near the Panhandle. The southern Plains States that were effected by the Dust Bowl are Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico. When the Dust Bowl rolled into all of these States it was the hardest thing that farmers, and everyone who lived in these states had been through. The dust storm was caused by a major drought, and wind erosion. Some of the States got it worse than some, Oklahoma and Kansas were the two that got hit the hardest during the 1930’s. In the book Dust Bowl, The Southern Plains in the 1930’s, written by David Worster it says, “The Dust Bowl was the darkest...
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...critical dust storms that damaged the agriculture of the United States. Also known as the dirty thirties, the Dustbowl took place in the 1930’s. Not only did the dustbowl bring economical, ecological and human misery to the United states but, this was all during a time when the US was already suffering under the Great Depression. “A failure to apply dry land farming methods and severe drought to prevent wind erosion caused the phenomenon.” The drought came in different years, 1934, 1936, and 1939 to 1940. Some regions of the high plains went through droughts for up to eight years. But since back then there was insufficient knowledge on “ecology of the plains, farmers conducted extensive deep plowing of the virgin topsoil of the Great Plains during the previous decade; this had displaced the native, deep-rooted grasses that normally trapped soil and moisture even during periods of drought and high winds....
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...There was dust everywhere, you could barely see breath or do anything without being surrounded by dust. The Dust Bowl was the name given to the drought-stricken Southern Plains region of the United States. I'm gonna tell you about how the dust bowl was caused, how it affected the economy, and personal stories about the Dust Bowl. Many immigrants moved from the cities in the northeast to the plains in the midwest where there was available farmland. These immigrants were inexperienced. The demand for wheat caused by World War I encouraged farmers to plow up native grasslands to plant wheat, corn and other crops. At the beginning of the Great Depression, wheat prices fell, so farmers converted more grassland into crop land to try to break even. Major...
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...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...
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...The Black Blizzards In the 1930s, horrific dark clouds of dust would roll in to the states of western Texas, eastern New Mexico, the Oklahoma Panhandle, western Kansas, and eastern Colorado. These powerful clouds of dust would later become known as the storms that caused the Dust Bowl. These storms of dust were caused by a combination of ecological and human factor. The storms had many effects on people and their ways of life. The Dust Bowl caused people to suffer and leave behind their homes; it hurt the economy, and changed the ways farmers would farm forever. After a long increasing drought, record high heat, and powerful winds the semiarid region of the Plaines and grasslands was basically a desert. Drought was regular on the Plaines. According to the Texas State Historical Association, extreme droughts come around every twenty years, and milder drought every three to four years. Usually, there is approximately less than twenty inches of rain per year. These twenty inches are not enough to keep large vegetation like trees alive therefore; thick wild grass that requires little water grows the region. This wild grass usually survived the harsh weather. Stated in the book written by the author, Timothy Egan, “As long as the weave of grass was stitched to the land, the prairie would flourish in dry years and wet, the grass could look brown and dead, but beneath the surface, the roots held the soil in place; it was alive and dormant… Through the driest years, the web of life...
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...DeVyne Lowe What and where was the Dust Bowl? The Dust Bowl is an area of land where vegetation had been lost and soil reduced to dust and eroded, especially a consequence of drought or unsuitable farming practice. The Dust Bowl hit areas like Oklahoma, Kansas, and northern Texas. The Dust Bowl was the name given to the Great Plains region devastated by drought in 1930s depression-ridden America. The Dust Bowl was a dangerous storm that damaged many places. For eight years dust blew on southern plains. Tons of topsoil were blown off barren fields and carried in storm clouds for hundreds of miles. After a while the entire world was affected. The Dust Bowl got its name after...
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...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...
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...The Dust Bowl Essay Where was the Dust Bowl? The Dust Bowl was in southeastern Colorado, southwest Kansas, the extreme northwestern of Oklahoma, and Texas. What was the Dust Bowl? The Dust Bowl, also known as the Dirty Thirties, was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the town's and the fields. Severe drought and a failure to apply dryland farming methods to prevent wind erosion caused the curiosity of the Dust Bowl. The Dust Bowl forced many families to move. Some families didn’t leave because they still wanted to see if they could produce goods to make money. One common question asked is when did the Dust Bowl start? The Dust Bowl started in 1931. Another common question asked is how long did the Dust Bowl...
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...Great Depression, many nations would not have learned what not to do during a time of crisis. The most influential aspects of the Great Recession are unemployment, drought and mass migration. The actions that occurred during the Dust Bowl and the Great Recession are still seen influencing America. The vast amount of unemployment that occurred during the 1930’s was one of the most significant ways the Great Depression influenced America. As the amount of manufactured goods began to go down after the recession, so did the number of jobs, “the response was to lay off workers, [cut paychecks and] reduce production.” (Text...
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...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...
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...The Dust Bowl affected many families that lived in the Western Plains. Environmental problems were not only a problem in the 1930s, but continue to be a problem in today's society. The problems that occurred were the Dust Bowl, Lennie getting into trouble, and the wildfires. One of the biggest problems of the 1930's was the Dust Bowl. One example of this problem was that the Dust Bowl was a huge dust storm that harmed many people (White). The huge cloud of dust got trapped in people's homes; the intake of the dust caused people to get very sick. There were thick layers of dust on everything that was in their homes. Another example of this problem was, a period of drought, extreme weather, dust storms, and extreme temperatures (Waiser). The dust caused...
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...Great Plains Region was devastated by drought, and at a time when America was already depression ridden. The harse agricultural decline extended the Depression which was felt worldwide. There were many causes for the Dust Bowl, which had profound social, economical, and agricultural impact on America. The Dust Bowl stretched over 50 million acres from western Kansas to eastern Nevada. “The drought is the worst ever in United States history, covering more than 75 percent of the country and affecting 27 states severely” (The Dust 2). “The Dust Bowl resulted from unusually prolonged dryness and heat, coupled with a surge in farming on suboptimal land, using techniques based on a poor understanding of soil ecology.” (Richards 3) In essence, the...
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