The Dust Bowl, also known as the Dirty Thirties, was a period of severe dust storms that severely damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s; The phenomenon was caused by a severe drought and the failure to apply dryland cultivation methods to prevent wind erosion (aeolian processes). The drought occurred in three waves, in 1934, 1936 and 1939-1940, but some highland regions experienced drought conditions for as many as eight years. With insufficient understanding of the ecology of the Plains, farmers had conducted extensive and deep plowing of the virgin topsoil of the Great Plains during the previous decade; this had displaced deeply rooted, native grasses that normally trapped soil and moisture even during periods of drought and high winds. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The rapid mechanization of farm equipment, especially small gasoline tractors, and the widespread use of the combine contributed to farmers' decision to convert dry grasslands (much of which received no more than 10 inches ( 250 mm) of precipitation per year) on cultivated land. During the drought of the 1930s, the loosened soil turned to dust, which prevailing winds blew away to form huge clouds that sometimes darkened the sky. These choking waves of dust — called "black blizzards" or "black rollers" — traveled across the country, reaching the East Coast and hitting cities like New York and Washington, DC. On the plains, they often reduced visibility to 1 meter. (3.3 feet) or less. Associated Press reporter Robert E. Geiger was in Boise City, Oklahoma, to witness the "Black Sunday" blizzards of April 14, 1935; Kansas City Associated Press editor Edward Stanley coined the term "Dust Bowl" while rewriting Geiger's story. While the term "Dust Bowl" was originally a reference to the geographical area affected by the dust, today it is usually used to refer to the event, as in "It was during the Dust Bowl". The drought and erosion of the Dust Bowl affected 100,000,000 acres (400,000 km2) that were concentrated in the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma and touched adjacent sections of New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas. The Dust Bowl forced tens of thousands of poor families to abandon their farms, unable to pay mortgages or grow crops, and losses reached $25 million per day in 1936 (equivalent to $440,000,000 in 2017 dollars) . Many of these families, often known as "Okies" because many of them came from Oklahoma, immigrated to California and other states to find that the Great Depression had made economic conditions there little better than they had left. it has been the subject of numerous cultural works, notably John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939), Woody Guthrie's popular music, and Dorothea Lange's photographs depicting migrant conditions. Elevations range from 2,500 feet (760 m) in the east to 6,000 feet (1,800 m) at the base of the Rocky Mountains. The area is semi-arid and receives less than 510 mm of rainfall per year; this rainfall supports the shortgrass prairie biome originally present in the area. The region is also subject to periods of prolonged drought, alternating with unusual levels of humidity of equivalent duration.[8] During rainy years, fertile soil provides abundant agricultural production, but crops fail during dry years. The region is also subject to strong winds. During early European explorations andAmericans of the Great Plains, this region was considered unsuitable for European-style agriculture; explorers called it the Great American Desert. The lack of surface water and timber made the region less attractive than other areas for pioneer settlement and agriculture. The federal government encouraged the settlement and development of the plains for agriculture through the Homestead Act of 1862, offering settlers 160-acre (65 ha) tracts. With the end of the Civil War in 1865 and the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad in 1869, waves of new migrants and immigrants reached the Great Plains and greatly increased the acreage. An unusually wet period in the Great Plains led settlers and the federal government to mistakenly believe that "rain follows the plow" (a popular phrase among real estate developers) and that the region's climate had changed permanently. Although initial agricultural activities primarily involved raising livestock, the adverse effects of harsh winters on livestock, starting in 1886, a brief drought in the 1890s, and general overgrazing, led many landowners to increase the amount of land under cultivation. arid and marginal land, the U.S. government expanded the 160 acres (65 ha) offered by the Homestead Act, granting 640 acres (260 ha) to homeowners in western Nebraska under the Kinkaid Act (1904) and 320 acres ( 130 ha) elsewhere in the Great Plains under the Enlarged Homestead Act (1909). Waves of European settlers arrived on the Plains in the early 20th century. The return of an unusually wet climate appears to have confirmed the previously held view that the "formerly" semi-arid area could support large-scale agriculture. At the same time, technological improvements such as mechanized plowing and mechanized harvesting have made it possible to manage larger properties without increasing labor costs. The first war increased agricultural prices; this demand encouraged farmers to significantly increase cultivation. For example, in the Llano Estacado of eastern New Mexico and northwestern Texas, the area of ​​farmland was doubled between 1900 and 1920, then tripled again between 1925 and 1930. The agricultural methods favored by farmers during this period they created the conditions for large-scale agriculture. erosion under certain environmental conditions. Widespread conversion of land by deep plowing and other land preparation methods to allow agriculture eliminated the native grasses that held the soil in place and helped retain moisture during periods of drought. Additionally, cotton farmers left fields bare during the winter months, when winds in the High Plains were strongest, and burned stubble as a means of controlling weeds before planting, thus depriving the soil of organic nutrients and surface vegetation. Drought and dust stormsA dust storm; Spearman, Texas, April 14, 1935 “Heavy Black Clouds of Dust Rising Over Texas Panhandle, Texas,” c. 1936. After fairly favorable climate conditions in the 1920s with good precipitation and relatively moderate winters, which allowed for increased settlement and cultivation in the Great Plains, the region entered an unusually dry era in the summer of 1930.[14] During the next decade, the Northern Plains experienced four of the seven driest calendar years since 1895, Kansas four of the twelve driest years, and the entire region south of West Texas had no period of above-normal precipitation until the record rains did not arrive in 1941. A severe drought hit the Great Plains region in the 1930s,causing erosion and loss of topsoil due to agricultural practices of the time. The drought dried out the soil which over time became crumbly, reduced in some places to a dusty consistency. Without the native grasses in place, strong winds across the plains kicked up topsoil and created the massive dust storms that marked the Dust Bowl. Persistent dry weather has caused crop failure, leaving plowed fields exposed to wind erosion. The fine soil of the Great Plains was easily eroded and carried eastward by strong continental winds. On November 11, 1933, a very strong dust storm stripped topsoil from the dried farmland of South Dakota in just one of a series of severe dust storms.thunderstorms that year. Starting on May 9, 1934, a severe two-day dust storm removed enormous amounts of topsoil from the Great Plains in one of the worst such storms of the Dust Bowl. The dust clouds reached as far as Chicago, where they deposited 12 million pounds of dust.[20]Two days later, the same storm reached cities in the East, such as Cleveland, Buffalo, Boston, New York City, and Washington, D.C. That n winter (1934-1935), red snow fell on New England. On April 14, 1935, known as "Black Sunday," 20 of the worst "black blizzards" occurred across the Great Plains, from southern Canada to Texas. Dust storms caused extensive damage and turned day into night; Witnesses reported that at certain points they could not see five feet in front of them. Associated Press reporter from Denver, Robert E. Geiger, was in Boise City, Oklahoma, that day. His story about Black Sunday marked the first appearance of the term Dust Bowl; was coined by Kansas City Associated Press news editor Edward Stanley while rewriting Geiger's news story. Spearman and Hansford County have literally been in a cloud of dust for the last week. Since Friday of last week, there hasn't been a single day pass that hasn't besieged the county with a blast of wind and dirt. On rare occasions, when the wind died down for a period of hours, the air was so full of dust that the city seemed to be covered in a cloud of fog. Because of this long siege of dust and every building filled with it, the air became suffocating to breathe and many people developed sore throats and dust colds. "—Spearman Reporter, March 21, 1935 Much of the farmland was eroded in the aftermath of the Dust Bowl. In 1941, a Kansas agricultural testing station issued a bulletin suggesting restoring native grasses by the "hay method." , developed in 1937 to speed up the process and increase pasture yields was originally supposed to occur naturally in Kansas over 25 to 40 years. After thorough analysis of the data, the causal mechanism of the drought can be linked to Ocean temperature anomalies. In particular, Atlantic Ocean sea surface temperatures appear to have had an indirect effect on the overall atmospheric circulation, while Pacific sea surface temperatures appear to have had the more direct influence on the shift. human This catastrophe intensified the economic impact of the Great Depression in the region.Cars buried in a barn; Dallas, South Dakota, May 1936 In 1935, many families were forced to leave their farms and go to other areas in search of work due to the drought (which had already lasted for four years at that time). Farm abandonment and financial ruin resulting from the catastrophic loss of topsoil haveled to widespread hunger and poverty.[26] Dust Bowl conditions fomented an exodus of displaced people from Texas, Oklahoma, and the surrounding Great Plains to adjacent regions. More than 500,000 Americans were left homeless. After just one storm over 350 homes were demolished. Severe drought and dust storms had left many homeless, others had their mortgages foreclosed on by banks, and still others felt they had no choice but to abandon their farms in search of work. Many Americans migrated west in search of work. The parents packed up their families and some personal belongings and headed west in search of work. Some Plains residents, especially in Kansas and Oklahoma, fell ill and died from dust pneumonia or malnutrition. “Break, sick kid and car trouble!” - Dorothea Lange photo from 1937 of a Missouri migrant family's truck stranded near Tracy, California. The Dust Bowl exodus was the largest migration in American history in a short period of time. Between 1930 and 1940, approximately 3.5 million people moved from the Plains states; of these, it is not known how many moved to California. In just over a year, more than 86,000 people have immigrated to California. This number is more than the number of migrants to that area during the Gold Rush of 1849. Migrants abandoned farms in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, Colorado, and New Mexico, but were often generally referred to as "Okies", "Arkies" or "Texies". Terms like "Okies" and "Arkies" became known in the 1930s as standard terms for those who had lost everything and were struggling most during the Great Depression. Not all migrants traveled long distances; some simply went to the next city or county. So many families left their farms and moved that the ratio of migrants to residents was about equal in the Great Plains states. Characteristics of MigrantsA migrant family from Texas living in a trailer in an Arizona cotton fieldHistorian James N. Gregory examined Census Bureau statistics and other documents to learn more about migrants. Based on a 1939 employment survey conducted by the Bureau of Agricultural Economics of approximately 116,000 families who arrived in California in the 1930s, he learned that only 43 percent of Southwesterners held agricultural jobs immediately before emigrating. Almost a third of all migrants were professionals or employees. The poor economy has forced not only farmers to move to California as refugees; many teachers, lawyers, and small business owners moved west with their families during this period. After the end of the Great Depression, some returned to their original states. Many others remained where they had resettled. About one-eighth of California's population is of Okie descent. The U.S. Government Response Significantly expanded government participation in land management and soil conservation was an important outcome of the disaster. Different groups took different approaches to responding to the disaster. To identify areas that needed attention, groups like the Soil Conservation Service generated detailed soil maps and took photos of the terrain from the air. To create shelterbelts to reduce soil erosion, groups like the U.S. Forest Service's Prairie States Forestry Project have planted trees on private land. Finally, groups like the Resettlement Administration, which later became the Farm Security Administration, encouraged small farm owners to move to other lands if.