15 Things You Should Know About The Dust Bowl

15 Things You Should Know About The Dust Bowl

The Dust Bowl was a time of severe dust storms in the 1930s that severely harmed the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies. The phenomenon was brought about by combining natural (severe drought) and man-made elements (a failure to apply dryland farming methods to prevent wind erosion, most notably the destruction of the natural topsoil by settlers in the region). During the event, topsoil was blown away in massive clouds of dust at speeds of up to 60 miles per hour, hitting cities as far away as Washington, DC, and New York from affected areas in Oklahoma and Texas. People and livestock were slain and crops failed across the regions as high winds and choking dust swept the areas. Here are some of the facts you should know about the Dust Bowl.

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1. It was primarily triggered by man-made factors

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Before the 1930s drought, several poor land management techniques in the Great Plains region increased the region’s vulnerability. Farmers had conducted extensive deep plowing of the virgin topsoil of the Great Plains during the previous decade, displacing the native, deep-rooted grasses that normally trapped soil and moisture even during periods of drought and high winds due to a lack of understanding of the plains’ ecology. Farmers’ decisions to change arid grassland to cultivated cropland were influenced by the rapid mechanization of farm machinery, particularly small gasoline tractors, and the widespread use of the combine harvester. During the 1930s drought, the unanchored soil changed to dust, which the prevailing winds blew away in massive clouds that occasionally blackened the sky.

2. The Dust Bowl is also known as “the Dirty Thirties”

Due to a crippling drought in the Prairies, the decade became known as the Dirty Thirties. The Dust Bowl was a perfect storm of badly calculated government land policies, changes in regional weather, and the Great Depression’s economic devastation.

3. The Dust Bowl displaced over 500,000 people

Sloan (?), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Dust Bowl drove tens of thousands of impoverished families to abandon their farms because they couldn’t pay their mortgages or produce crops, and losses hit $25 million per day by 1936 (equivalent to $490 million in 2021). Many of these families, dubbed “Okies” because so many of them were from Oklahoma, migrated to California and other states only to discover that the Great Depression had worsened economic circumstances there.

4. The Dust Bowl affected millions of acres of land

In 1930, the Midwest and southern Great Plains experienced severe drought and massive dust cyclones first appeared in 1931. A string of drought years followed, worsening the environmental catastrophe. By 1934, an estimated 35 million acres of previously cultivated land had become unfit for farming, while another 125 million acres roughly three-quarters the size of Texas were quickly losing topsoil.

5. One of the Dust Bowl’s most infamous storms happened in 1935

Shouannn, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

On April 14, 1935, dubbed “Black Sunday,” 20 of the worst “black blizzards” struck the entire Great Plains. The dust storms caused significant damage and appeared to turn the day into night as witnesses reported being unable to see five feet (1.5 m) ahead of them at times.

6. The Dust Bowl was characterized by severe dust cyclones

The first very powerful dust storm happened on November 11, 1933, and stripped topsoil from dry South Dakota farmlands which was one of many severe dust storms that year. Beginning on May 9, 1934, a powerful two-day dust storm removed massive quantities of Great Plains topsoil in one of the Dust Bowl’s worst such storms. The dust masses carried 12 million pounds (5,400 tonnes) of dust all the way to Chicago. The same storm hit towns to the east two days later, including Cleveland, Buffalo, Boston, New York City, and Washington, D.C. That winter (1934-1935), New England was blanketed in crimson snow.

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7. The Dust Bowl intensified the Great Depression’s devastating economic effects

USDA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Due to the drought, many families were compelled to leave their farms and travel to other areas in search of employment in 1935 (which at that time had already lasted four years). Homestead abandonment and financial ruin caused by catastrophic topsoil loss resulted in pervasive hunger and destitution. The resulting agricultural depression added to bank closures, company losses, increased unemployment, and other physical and emotional hardships during the Great Depression. Although records focus on other issues, a lack of precipitation would have had an impact on wildlife and plant life, as well as caused water shortages for domestic use.

8. Different organizations responded to the tragedy in a variety of ways

To identify problem areas, organizations such as the Soil Conservation Service created detailed soil maps and took aerial photographs of the land. Shelterbelts were planted on private lands by organizations such as the United States Forestry Service’s Prairie States Forestry Project to reduce soil erosion. Finally, organizations such as the Resettlement Administration, which later became the Farm Security Administration, urged small farm owners to relocate to drier areas of the Plains.

9. The disaster resulted in increased government involvement in land and soil conservation

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The American government moved swiftly to combat the devastation caused by the drought although the Dust Bowl could not be stopped once it had begun because the horse had already left the stable. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s government swiftly initiated programs to conserve soil and restore the nation’s ecological balance during his first 100 days in office in 1933. He also directed the Civilian Conservation Corps to plant the Great Plains Shelterbelt, a massive belt of over 200 million trees stretching from Canada to Abilene, Texas, to break the wind, hold water in the soil, and hold the soil itself in position. Farmers who adopted these novel methods were paid $1 per acre. The Civilian Conservation Corps, which hired thousands of Americans, was perhaps the most beneficial. This group was instructed by Roosevelt to plant over 200 million trees in the Great Plains to reduce wind, hold water, and keep soil in place.

10. The Dust Bowl has been featured in numerous artistic works

Photographers, musicians, and authors, many of whom were employed by the federal government during the Great Depression, documented the catastrophe. The Grapes of Wrath (1939) was written by author John Steinbeck based on field notes made by Farm Security Administration worker and author Sanora Babb about migrant workers and farm families displaced by the Dust Bowl. Whose Names Are Unknown, Babb’s novel about the lives of migrant workers, was written in 1939 but was overshadowed and shelved in reaction to Steinbeck’s success, and was finally published in 2004. Many of Woody Guthrie’s songs, such as those on his 1940 album Dust Bowl Ballads, are about his experiences in the Dust Bowl era during the Great Depression. Grant Maloy Smith, an Americana recording artist, was inspired by the history of the Dust Bowl to create the album Dust Bowl – American Stories.

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11. The Panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma were the most impacted by the Dust Bowl

Dorothea Lange, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Dust Bowl had the greatest impact on agricultural territory in the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles, affecting 16 million acres (6.5 million hectares). During the Dust Bowl, the majority of Great Plains’ migrants lived in these counties, which the US Department of Agriculture’s Soil Conservation Service designated as the worst wind-eroded area.

12. Four separate drought events occurred during the Dust Bowl

Despite the fact that the 1930s drought is frequently referred to as a single incident, there were actually at least four separate drought events in 1930–1931, 1934–1936, and 1939–1940. These incidents happened so quickly after one another that the affected areas were unable to fully recoup before a new drought started.

13. The year 1939 marked the end of dust storms

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Increased conservation efforts and environmentally friendly farming methods significantly reduced the dust, but the drought was still going strong in April 1939. Although to many people the drought seemed to go on forever, it eventually ended. The Dust Bowl came to an end in the autumn of 1939 when the rain began to fall again in significant amounts in many Great Plains regions. But the harm persisted.

14. The Dust Bowl spurred the largest migration in American history

Many people abandoned their property as the drought and dust storms continued unabated. Others would have remained but were forced to leave due to bank foreclosures. In total, one-quarter of the people fled, packing their belongings into cars and trucks and driving west toward California. Although three out of every four farmers remained on their land, the mass exodus severely depleted the population in some regions. The population of the rural region outside of Boise City, Oklahoma, fell by 40%, with 1,642 small farmers and their families pulling up stakes.

15. The dust bowl had an effect on people’s wellbeing

Dorothea Lange, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Residents of the Dust Bowl displayed symptoms of silicosis as did miners due to breathing in the high silica content, and incredibly fine silt particles. Numerous people died from dust pneumonia, also known as the “brown plague,” which was especially deadly to infants, young children, and the aged.

The Dust Bowl was caused by a combination of economic depression, prolonged drought, unusually high temperatures, poor agricultural practices, and wind erosion. This has taught the United States to investigate improved methods of land management. Western lands with insufficient rainfall to support grain crops such as maize or wheat should be left as pasture to maintain a grass cover capable of retaining moisture and retaining topsoil.