The
Dust Bowl or the Dirty Thirties
was a period of severe dust storms
causing major ecological and agricultural damage to American
and Canadian prairie
lands from 1930 to 1936 (in some areas until 1940). The
phenomenon was caused by severe
drought
coupled with decades of extensive farming without
crop rotation, fallow fields, cover crops and
other techniques to prevent
erosion.
Deep
plowing of the virgin topsoil of the
Great
Plains
had killed the natural grasses
that normally kept the soil in place and trapped moisture even
during periods of drought and high
winds.
During the drought of the 1930s, with no natural anchors to keep
the soil in place, it dried, turned to
dust,
and blew away eastward and southward in large dark clouds. At times
the clouds blackened the sky reaching all the way to
East Coast cities such as
New York and Washington, D.C.
Much of the soil ended up deposited in the
Atlantic
Ocean
, carried by prevailing winds which were in part
created by the dry and bare soil conditions itself. These
immense dust storms–given names such as "Black Blizzards" and
"Black Rollers"–often reduced visibility to a few feet (around a
meter). The Dust Bowl affected , centered on the
panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma, and adjacent
parts of New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas.The Dust Bowl was an
ecological and human disaster caused by misuse of land and years of
sustained drought. Millions of acres of farmland became useless,
and hundreds of thousands of people were forced to leave their
homes; many of these families (often known as "
Okies", since so many came from Oklahoma) traveled to
California and other states, where they found economic conditions
little better than those they had left. Owning no land, many
traveled from farm to farm picking fruit and other crops at
starvation wages. Author
John
Steinbeck later wrote
The
Grapes of Wrath, which won the
Pulitzer Prize, and
Of Mice and Men about such
people.
Causes
Agricultural and settlement history
During
early European and American exploration of the Great Plains
, the region in which the Dust Bowl occurred was
thought unsuitable for European-style agriculture; indeed, the
region was known as the Great
American Desert. The lack of surface water and timber
made the region less attractive than other areas for
pioneer settlement and agriculture.
However, following the
Civil War,
settlement in the area increased, encouraged by the
Homestead Act and westward expansion. An
unusually wet period in the Great Plains mistakenly led settlers
and government to believe that "
rain follows the plow" and that the
climate of the region had changed permanently. The initial
agricultural endeavors were primarily
cattle ranching with some cultivation; however,
a series of harsh winters beginning in 1886, coupled with
overgrazing followed by a short drought in 1890, led to an
expansion of land under cultivation.
Immigration began again at the beginning of the 20th century. A
return of unusually wet weather confirmed the previously held
opinion that the "formerly" semi-arid area could support
large-scale agriculture. Technological improvements led to
increased
automation, which allowed for
cultivation on an ever greater scale.
World
War I increased agricultural prices, which also encouraged
farmers to drastically increase cultivation.
In the Llano Estacado
, farmland area doubled between 1900 and 1920, and
land under cultivation more than tripled between 1925 and
1930. Finally, farmers used agricultural practices that
encouraged erosion. For example,
cotton
farmers left fields bare over winter months, when winds in the High
Plains are highest, and burned the
stubble (as a form of weeding prior to
planting), which deprived the soil of organic nutrients and
increased exposure to
erosion.
This
increased exposure to erosion was revealed when a severe drought struck the Great Plains
in 1934. The native grasses that covered the
prairie lands for centuries, holding the soil in place and
maintaining its moisture, had been eliminated by the intensively
increased plowing. The drought conditions caused the topsoil to
grow dry and friable and it was simply carried away by the wind.
The dusty soil aggregated in the air forming immense dust clouds
which further prevented rainfall. It was not until the government
promoted soil conservation programs that the area slowly began to
rehabilitate.
Geographic characteristics
The Dust
Bowl area lies principally west of the 100th meridian on the High Plains, characterized by
plains which vary from rolling in the north to flat in the Llano Estacado
. Elevation ranges from in the east to at the
base of the
Rocky Mountains. The
area is
semi-arid, receiving less than of
rain annually; this rainfall supports the
Shortgrass prairie biome originally
present in the area. The region is also prone to extended drought,
alternating with unusual wetness of equivalent duration. During wet
years, the rich soil provides bountiful agricultural output, but
crops fail during dry years. Furthermore, the region is subject to
winds higher than any region except coastal regions.
Drought and dust storms
The unusually wet period, which encouraged increased settlement and
cultivation in the Great Plains, ended in 1930. This was the year
in which an extended and severe drought began which caused crops to
fail, leaving the plowed fields exposed to wind erosion. The fine
soil of the Great Plains was easily eroded and carried east by
strong continental winds.
On
November 11, 1933, a very strong dust storm stripped topsoil from desiccated South Dakota
farmlands in just one of a series of bad dust
storms that year. Then, beginning on May 9, 1934, a strong
two-day dust storm removed massive amounts of Great Plains
topsoil in one of the worst such storms of the Dust
Bowl. The dust clouds blew all the way to Chicago
where dirt
fell like snow. Two days later, the same storm reached
cities in the east, such as Buffalo
, Boston
, New York
City
, and Washington, D.C.
That winter, red snow fell on New England
.
On April 14, 1935, known as "
Black
Sunday", twenty of the worst "Black Blizzards" occurred
throughout the Dust Bowl, causing extensive damage and turning the
day to night; witnesses reported that they could not see five feet
in front of them at certain points. The dust storms were so bad
that often roosters thought that it was night instead of day and
went to sleep during them.
Human displacement
This catastrophe intensified the economic impact of the
Great Depression in the region.
Canada
Two-thirds of farmers in "Palliser's Triangle", in the Canadian
province of Saskatchewan
, had to rely on government aid. This was due
mainly to drought,
hail storms, and erratic
weather rather than to dust storms as was occurring on the U.S.
Great Plains.
Many Canadians fled to urban areas such as
Toronto
.
U.S.
Dust Bowl
conditions fomented an exodus of the displaced from Texas
, Oklahoma
, and the surrounding Great Plains to adjacent
regions. More than 500,000 Americans were left homeless. 356
houses had to be torn down after one storm alone. Many Americans
migrated west looking for work.
Some residents of the Plains, especially in
Kansas
and Oklahoma
fell ill and died of dust pneumonia
or malnutrition.
The Dust Bowl exodus was the largest migration in American history
within a short period of time.
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
, but all were generally referred to as "Okies". The second wave of the Great Migration by
African Americans from the South (esp. the
states of Arkansas, Louisiana
, Mississippi
, Alabama
, Tennessee
and Texas) to the North
was larger, involving more than 5 million people, but it took place
over decades, from 1940-1970. Also to note the
small but influential migration of Mexican-Americans of dust-bowl and poverty
stricken areas of Texas (see Tejanos), New
Mexico, Arizona
and Colorado, as they headed westward to other
Hispanic communities and farming valleys of
California.
Characteristics of migrants
U.S.
When James N. Gregory examined the Census Bureau statistics as well
as other surveys, he discovered some surprising percentages. For
example, in 1939 the Bureau of Agricultural Economics surveyed the
occupations of about 116,000 families who had arrived in California
in the 1930s. It showed that only 43 percent of southwesterners
were doing farm work immediately before they migrated. Nearly
one-third of all migrants were professional or white collar
workers.
Government response
U.S.
During
President
Franklin D. Roosevelt's first 100 days in 1933,
governmental programs designed to
conserve soil and restore the ecological
balance of the nation were implemented. Interior Secretary
Harold L. Ickes established the Soil Erosion Service
in August 1933 under
Hugh Hammond
Bennett.
In 1935 it was transferred and reorganized
under the Department of Agriculture
and renamed the Soil Conservation Service.
More recently it has been renamed the
Natural Resources
Conservation Service (NRCS).
Additionally, the Federal Surplus Relief Corporation (FSRC) was
created after more than six million pigs were slaughtered to
stabilize prices. The pigs went to waste. The FSRC diverted
agricultural commodities to relief organizations. Apples, beans,
canned beef, flour and pork products were distributed through local
relief channels. Cotton goods were later included, to clothe the
needy.
In 1935, the federal government formed a Drought Relief Service
(DRS) to coordinate relief activities. The DRS bought cattle in
counties which were designated emergency areas, for $14 to $20 a
head. Animals unfit for human consumption - more than 50 percent at
the beginning of the program - were destroyed. The remaining cattle
were given to the Federal Surplus Relief Corporation (FSRC) to be
used in food distribution to families nationwide. Although it was
difficult for farmers to give up their herds, the cattle slaughter
program helped many of them avoid bankruptcy. "The government
cattle buying program was a God-send to many farmers, as they could
not afford to keep their cattle, and the government paid a better
price than they could obtain in local markets."
President
Roosevelt ordered the Civilian Conservation Corps to
plant a huge belt of more than 200 million trees from Canada to
Abilene,
Texas
to break the wind, hold water in the soil, and hold
the soil itself in place. The administration also began to
educate farmers on
soil
conservation and anti-erosion techniques, including crop
rotation,
strip farming,
contour plowing, terracing, and other
improved farming practices. In 1937, the federal government began
an aggressive campaign to encourage Dust Bowlers to adopt planting
and plowing methods that conserved the soil. The government paid
the reluctant farmers a dollar an acre to practice one of the new
methods. By 1938, the massive conservation effort had reduced the
amount of blowing soil by 65 percent. Nevertheless, the land failed
to yield a decent living. In the fall of 1939, after nearly a
decade of dirt and dust, the nearly decade long drought ended as
regular rainfall finally returned to the region.
Lasting Consequences
By the time the major drought concluded in the mid 1940s the
demographics and political economy of the plains of the 100th
meridian had fundamentally changed. The out migration of the 1930s
and the demands of World War II employment outside the region of
almost all the male and head-of-household migrating population in
the war and in war-related industries outside of the region
permanently removed from these great western plains small-scale
single-family farming agriculture which had been the origin of the
disaster in the first place.
The families who migrated experienced a permanent, significant
increase in their household incomes in the aftermath of the war in
their new locations and settings as non-farm workers. This
guaranteed that they had no desire to return to the harrowing
poverty of their rural existence as it was, even before the great
drought. Advances in agriculture, transportation and agri-business
in the post war period further contributed to the collapse in
demand for the small-scale farming that had taken place in the
region. In simple terms, the cost of returning these lands to
useful agricultural production, given the need to protect the
delicate soil environment of the region, would have produced
wholesale farm product prices that were uncompetitive with prices
for products produced elsewhere in the US.
Influence on the arts
U.S.
The crisis was documented by photographers, musicians, and authors.
Many were hired by various U.S. federal agencies. The
Farm Security Administration
hired numerous photographers, giving
Dorothea Lange her start. She made a name for
herself while capturing the impact of the storms and families of
migrants. The work of independent artists such as
folk singer Woody
Guthrie and American
novelist John Steinbeck grew out of the events of the
Dust Bowl of the 1930s.
Migrants leaving the Plains states took their music with them.
Oklahoma migrants, in particular, descended from rural Southerners
earlier in the century, contributed greatly to the transplanting of
country music to California. Today, the "
Bakersfield Sound" describes this blend of
country music, which the migrants brought to the city. Their new
music caused a proliferation of country dance halls as far South as
Los Angeles.
Future Dust Bowls
The conditions that produced the Dust Bowl of the 1930s can occur
again. Likely candidates for locations include China, Africa,
Australia, and North America again.
Africa
The
Sahel region of Africa is particularly
prone to devastating droughts. Normally, a few years of drought are
relieved by a few rainy years. Since the late 1960s, the Sahel has
endured extensive and severe drought. When the land is dry,
desertification is caused by overgrazing.
Australia
Australia's largest river system, the
Murray
River
, is drying up and crop yields have fallen
drastically after seven years of drought. Australia
experienced
a major dust
storm in 2009.
China
In 2007, the
WorldChanging web site
stated that China was turning productive land into desert at the
rate of one million acres per year, producing huge sandstorms, and
that the population of grazing animals had quadrupled since the
1960s. Overgrazing is a cause of desertification. The government
tries to reduce overgrazing by resettling traditional herders to
villages.
See also
References
Bibliography
- Woody
Guthrie, The (Nearly) Complete Collection of Woody Guthrie Folk
Songs, Ludlow Music, New York
(1963).
- Alan Lomax, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Hard-Hitting Songs for Hard-Hit
People, Oak Publications, New York (1967).
- C. Vann Woodward, The Origins of the New South,
Louisiana State University Press (1967).
- The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived
the Great American Dust Bowl, Timothy Egan, Houghton Mifflin
Company, New York, 2006, hardcover. ISBN 0-618-34697-X.
- The Dust Bowl: Men, Dirt, and
Depression, Paul Bonnifield, University
of New Mexico
Press, Albuquerque
, New
Mexico
, 1978, hardcover. ISBN 0-8263-0485-0.
- Survival in the Storm: The Dust Bowl Diary of Grace
Edwards, Dalhart, Texas, 1935, Katelan Janke, Scholastic
(September 2002). ISBN 0-439-21599-4.
- Out of the Dust,
Karen Hesse, Scholastic Signature.
New York
First Edition, 1997, hardcover (paperback January
1999). ISBN 0-590-37125-8.
External links
- NASA Explains "Dust Bowl" Drought
- The Dust Bowl photo collection
- The Dust Bowl (EH.Net Encyclopedia)
- Black Sunday, April 14, 1935, Dodge City, KS
- The Bibliography of Aeolian Research
- Surviving the Dust Bowl, Black Sunday (April 14,
1935)
- The Plow That Broke The Plains
- Voices from the Dust Bowl: The Charles L. Todd
and Robert Sonkin Migrant Worker Collection, 1940-1941 Library of
Congress
, American
Folklife Center Online collection of archival sound recordings,
photographs, and manuscripts
- Youtube Video: "The
Great Depression, Displaced Mountaineers in Shenandoah National
Park, and the Civilian Conservation Corps (C.C.C.)"
- Farming in the 1930s (Wessels Living History
Farm)
- Black Blizzard (The History Channel)
- Flash: Out of the Dust (The Modesto Bee)
- Africa Data Dissemination Service, part of the Famine
Early Warning Systems Network, U.S. Geological Service
- Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture - Dust
Bowl