Farming in the Dust Bowl Years

8/3/2019 Farming in the Dust Bowl Years

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Despair and Desperation


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The economic depression of the 1930s waslonger and harder than any other inAmerican history. Hardest hit were thestates of the Great Plains. An averagewage earner in North Dakota only earned

$145/year, compared to the nationalaverage of $375/yr. Low income wascombined with the longest and hardest

droughts on record during the 1930s.


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Farmers, encouraged to increase cropproduction during World War I, continuedto expand their cultivated fields in an effortto bolster their already low incomes ascommodity prices dropped. The hugetracts of virgin prairie being plowed under,

combined with years of droughtconditions, set the stage for the huge,devastating dust storms of the Midwest.


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The government bought cattle in drought-devastatedareas for $14 to $20/head from farmers who couldnt

feed them. Over 50% were not fit for slaughter and hadto be destroyed. But the money saved many farmers

from foreclosure and losing their farms.


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Farmers had planted the crops they hadraised in the East, those they were familiar

with. But with the drought, the cropswithered and dried up, exposing the soil tothe hot, gusty, summer winds.


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Tons of topsoil were lifted by the blustery

prairie winds and carried hundreds ofmiles, stripping hundreds of millions of richtop soil from miles of fields and buryingentire homesteads under drifts of dust.


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"The impact is like a shovelful of fine sandflung against the face. People caught intheir own yards grope for the doorstep.Cars come to a standstill, for no light in theworld can penetrate that swirling murk...We live with the dust, eat it, sleep with it,

watch it strip us of possessions and thehope of possessions. It is becoming Real."


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The thick swirling dust darkened the sun

so that chickens, thinking it was night,went to roost in the middle of the day.

The storms becameknown as black

blizzards.
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Without competition from crops, tumbleweedsgrew well, like weeds. They matured, tumbled,and got caught in the miles of fences

surrounding fields and farms, making a screenthat caught and held the blowing dust.


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Red dust from Oklahoma blew north as far asCanada and settled on ships 300 miles out in theAtlantic Ocean to the east.


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One dust storm in May, 1934, dropped 12million tons of dust on Chicago.


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The amount of land stripped of its richtopsoil by the hot, dry relentless winds

Livestock were blinded and suffocated bythe blowing dust.


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1931, 1932, 1934, 1936, 1939, 1940

Farmers who had plowed under the nativeprairie grass that held the soil in place sawtons of topsoil, which had taken thousands

of years to accumulate, rise into the air

and blow away in minutes.


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Congress, in a desperate measure tohalt the loss of more topsoil, passed

an act designed to educate,encourage, and reward farmers forpracticing soil conservation through

strip cropping, crop rotation, covercrops, contouring, and terraces.


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By mid-July, central Nebraska had 20 days withtemperatures of over 100 degrees. Nights weresweltering. No electricity = no air conditioning

and no fans. People hung wet sheets in hopesthe evaporation might cool their rooms or theyslept outside.

In this photo, people sleep on

the lawn of the Nebraska StateCapital.

The records set thatsummer still stand.


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"Approximately 35 million acres of formerlycultivated land have essentially beendestroyed for crop production. . . . 100million acres now in crops have lost all ormost of the topsoil; 125 million acres ofland now in crops are rapidly losing topsoil.

. . 1934 Yearbook of Agriculture


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Winds of up to 100 mph swept across theDakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, eastern Colorado,Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico, causing a

dust storm 1,000 miles wide.


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The dust cloud rose 20,000 ft. into the air. Itdarkened the skies over New York and

Washington, DC. Below is Garden City, Kansas, before and during a dust

storm in October, 1935.


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Farm families cleaned their homes withbrooms and shovels in the morning.

Women hung wet sheets over windowsand doorways in a futile attempt to keepout the dust.


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People inhaled sand, coughed up dirt, anddied of dust pneumonia. Dust-damaged

lungs exhibited signs and symptomssimilar to pneumonia. Infants and childrenwere especially vulnerable.


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School children wore dust masks during the walkto and from school. Teachers lit kerosenelanterns in the middle of the day. Children had to

stay overnight at the schoolhouse during theworst dust storms so

they wouldnt get lostin the brown-out

conditions or beovercome by thedust and suffocate.


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Life expectancy in rural areas wasshortened by hardship, a dangerousoccupation, and lack of access to health

care. Men 58 yrs. Women 62 yrs.


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"The storm carried twice as much dirt aswas dug out of the earth to create thePanama Canal. The canal took seven

years to dig; the storm lasted a singleafternoon. More than 300,000 tons ofGreat Plains topsoil was airborne that day."

Tim Egan, a New York Times reporter and best-selling author


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More than 500,000 families were left homeless bythe Dust Bowl.


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More than 2.5 million people left the Great Plainsduring the 1930s. Many headed west in hopes

of a new start.


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Taking everything theyowned, they headed forthe promised land of

California.


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About 200,000 of the migrants headed forCalifornia. Because a large number came from

Oklahoma, they were derisively called Okies,whether they were from Oklahoma or not.

A man in a hobo jungle kills aturtle to make turtle soup.

Supper is served.


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An impoverished family

on a New Mexicohighway. Father hastuberculosis. Ninechildren including a sick

four-month-old baby. Nomoney at all. About tosell their belongingsand trailer for money tobuy food. "We don't

want to go where we'llbe a nuisance toanybody."


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Those who made the trek found camps of destitutefolk like themselves- struggling to find jobs, food,and shelter.


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This squatter isheating coffee in

his make-shiftkitchen in anabandonedwarehouse.


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House was built of scrap material invacant lot in Mexican section of San

Antonio, Texas.


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But sometimes, the weatherhere, too, interfered and the

crops failed.


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The government contracted photographers to chroniclethe life of those affected by the Dust Bowl hardships.One of these, Dorothea Lange, was gifted at capturingthe pathos in their circumstances.

I approached the hungry anddesperatemother. she askedme no questions. she wasthirty-two. She said that theyhad been living on frozen

vegetables from thesurrounding fields, and birdsthat the children killed. She had

just sold the tires from her carto buy food.


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Most of the 2,500 people in this camp were destitute.By the end of the decade there were still 4 million

migrants on the road.


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Waiting for the semimonthly relief checks at Calipatria, ImperialValley, California.

Typical story: fifteen years ago they owned farms in Oklahoma.Lost them through foreclosure when cotton prices fell after the

war. Became tenants and sharecroppers. With the drought anddust they came West, 1934-1937. Never before left the countywhere they were born.

Now they worked in others fields- whenthey were lucky enough to have workat all.


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They lived in poverty and optimisticallyhoped that next year would be better.


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Children of migrantworkers typically hadno way to attendschool. By the end of

1930 some 3 millionchildren had abandonedschool. Thousands ofschools had closed or

were operating onreduced hours. At least200,000 children took tothe roads on their own.


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The project called for large-scale planting oftrees across the Great Plains, stretching in a100-mile wide zone from Canada to northernTexas, to protect the land from wind erosion.

Native trees, such as red cedar and greenash, were planted along fence rows

separating properties. Farmers were paid toplant and cultivate them. The project was

estimated to cost 75 million dollars over aperiod of 12 years.It was a start


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1938The massive conservation effort resulted in

a 65 percent reduction in the amount ofsoil blowing.

However, the drought continued...


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The fall of 1939 saw rainfall return toaverage amounts. World War II had begun.The Great Depression was winding down.

The people and the land could begin toheal. But the land had been scarred

forever. It has never returned to those lush

days before the Dust Bowl.


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In the 70 or more years since the GreatDepression, a lot has changed on the farms of

rural America. Many of these are a legacy of thegovernment programs set in motion during the

Great Depression. Many farms today specializein only one main crop.


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Farming in the Dust Bowl Years

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