Causes and effects of the dust bowl

1. Depression & Dust Bowl: The
Great Plains Perfect Storm

2. Years Prior to Great Depression
• Though the stock market crash on October 29, 1929, is commonly known as the beginning of the Great Depression, America’s farmers
had been experiencing economic crisis throughout the 1920s. Since the end of World War I, food demand dropped but farmers
continued to produce surplus crops. The overproduction and less demand pushed the prices so low that the farmers weren’t earning
enough money to pay their debts and provide for their families.
• After the war, the production of farm machinery made working the land quicker and easier to till the ground and plant crops. Easy
credit was an incentive to go in debt, plant more crops and raise less cattle. Land that had been covered with grass to feed cattle was
plowed under and planted with wheat, cotton, corn and other crops. This left soil exposed to the winds that swept across the plains
every year.
• Farmers were struggling to pay their mortgage and keep their farms. With the stock market crash, the money supply tightened and
farmers were unable to borrow more money to stay afloat. Farmers could not pay their mortgage and the banks foreclosed on their
farms. The land, farm machinery and tools were auctioned off to go toward the farmer’s debts.
• Some farmers had resisted the easy credit so they were able to hang onto their land but many of them had to abandon their farms
when drought hit the Great Plains. When the drought struck from 1934 to 1937 and again during 1939-1940, the soil had been stripped
of the stronger root system of grass needed to anchor the soil. Some regions of the high plains endured drought conditions for as many
as eight years. When the winds swept across the barren soil, the loose topsoil was easily swirled into dense dust clouds, called “black
blizzards.” Some of the dust storms were as much as 8,000 to 10,000 feet tall. What a terrifying sight that had to be. The recurrent dust
storms were devastating. They choked cattle, ruined grasslands and drove 60% of the population from the region. The 150,000 square
mile area covered the panhandle of Oklahoma and Texas and sections of Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico.
• By 1940, more than 2.5 million people left the regions affected by the Dust Bowl. Nearly 10% moved to California after hearing
agriculture jobs were available. Often times there were no jobs. The lack of agriculture jobs drove some to move on to cities in search of
jobs to support their families.
• Many men abandoned their families when they couldn’t find work. Some probably from shame or guilt to see their family suffer and
others possibly to just escape the responsibility. There were many years of suffering and hardship during the Great Depression and
prior to the election of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt’s New Deal put America back to work and began the healing of our
nation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl 2

3. Buried Dreams
• This is a photo of buried
machinery in a barn lot
that was taken in Dallas,
South Dakota, in May
1936. It looks eerily like
a photo where a
nuclear bomb has
wiped out the whole
area.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl 3

4. Home, Unsweet Home
• Though this is far from ideal, at least
these children are sheltered from the
elements. Life was especially difficult
for children who had to grow up in a
hurry. Children of the dust bowl lost
their childhood innocence younger
than most. For children born during
those bleak times in American
history, they most likely never
experienced the blissful years of play,
enough to eat or the security of a
permanent home. Their lives and the
lives of their parents meant never
knowing if you would eat tomorrow,
if there would be a job tomorrow and
if you’d have a roof of any kind over
your head when you went to sleep at
night.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl 4

5. Dust Storms
• This is a photo of an
approaching dust storm.
Taken in Spearman, Texas,
on April 14, 1935. You can
imagine the size of the
storm, when you look at
the house and other
buildings that are
dwarfed by the height of
the blowing dust cloud,
they look like toys instead
of full size structures.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl 5

6. Relentless Blowing Dust
• Another example
depicting the scale of
these dust storms
engulfing house and
everything in their path.
This photo was taken in
Stratford, Texas, in
1935.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl 6

7. A Mother’s Despair
• Florence Owens Thompson
seen in the photo Pea
Pickers in California. Mother
of Seven Children. This
photo was by Dorothea
Lange. Her worried
expression tells us that life
is hard. Though we cannot
see the children’s faces,
their body language and
little heads resting on their
mother’s shoulders tells us
they are worried too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl 7

8. Misery Everywhere
• No doubt that this was a
common scene on the
highways as the migrants,
known as Okies, made their
way to California and other
western states looking for
work in the farm fields. This
photo is titled “Broke, baby
sick, and car trouble!”
Dorothea Lange’s 1937
photo of a Missouri migrant
family’s car broke down
near Tracy, California.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl 8

9. Riding The Rails
• Man On The Move • Though it was dangerous and
illegal, hopping freight trains
was a way to travel to where
there was a hope or a promise
of a job. It is believed that
more than two million men
and perhaps 8,000 women
became hoboes. At least 6,500
hobos were killed in one year,
either by accident or railroad
“bulls”, brutal guards hired by
the railroads to make sure only
paying customers rode on the
trains
http://livinghistoryfarm.org 9

10. Hitching a Ride, It’s Legal and Safer Than Riding the
Rails: They Came From All Walks of Life
• Families, a life they had never faced. Their style of
clothing tells the story of what life had been like for
them before. From a home, nice clothes and probably all
they needed or wanted to having nothing except the
clothes they’re wearing and what’s in the suitcases.
• Hollywood took notice of and produced movies that
showed the difficulties of living in the depression era
and the dust bowl days of the plains. These are actors
Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert in a photo from the
movie “It Happened One Night,” hitchhiking in search of
a ride.
http://livinghistoryfarm.org 10

11. Rail Riders Who Later Became Famous
• Even with all the dangers they faced by hopping on the freight trains, desperation
outweighed fear for their safety. Many of the hobos had wives and children and were
desperate to earn money to support them. Others just gave up and abandoned their families.
Women left to fend for themselves and their children suffered the most. The physical burden
was heavy but the emotional despair of hungry children with no food to eat was even worse.
• Listed below are a few of the people who became famous years after riding the rails, looking
for work. The names are surprising. I had no idea these talented men came through those
times. To their credit their spirits were not broken. They became successful in spite of those
bleak years.
– Novelist Louis L’Amour
– TV host Art Linkletter
– Oil billionaire H. L. Hunt
– Journalist Eric Sevareid
– Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas
http://livinghistoryfarm.org 11