About The Dust Bowl Essay, Research Paper

The Dust Bowl

of the 1930s lasted about a decennary. Its primary country of impact was on the southern Plains.

The northern Plains were non so severely effected, but however, the drouth, windblown

dust and agricultural diminution were no aliens to the North. In fact the agricultural

desolation helped to lengthen the Depression whose effects were felt worldwide. The

motion of people on the Plains was besides profound.

As John Steinbeck wrote in his 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath: “ And so

the dispossessed were drawn west- from Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico ; from Nevada

and Arkansas, households, folks, dusted out, tractored out. Car-loads, trains, homeless

and hungry ; 20 thousand and 50 1000 and a hundred thousand and two hundred

1000. They streamed over the mountains, hungry and ungratified & # 8211 ; restless as emmets,

scampering to happen work to make & # 8211 ; to raise, to force, to draw, to pick, to cut & # 8211 ; anything, any

load to bear, for nutrient. The childs are hungry. We got no topographic point to populate. Like

emmets scampering for work, for nutrient, and most of all for land. ”

Poor agricultural patterns and old ages of sustained drouth caused the Dust Bowl. Plains

grasslands had been profoundly plowed and planted to wheat. During the old ages when there was

equal rainfall, the land produced big harvests. But as the drouths of the early

1930s deepened, the husbandmans kept ploughing and seting and nil would turn. The land

screen that held the dirt in topographic point was gone. The Plains air currents whipped across the Fieldss

raising wallowing clouds of dust to the skys. The skys could darken for yearss, and even the

most good sealed places could hold a thick bed of dust on furniture. In some topographic points the

dust would float like snow, covering farmsteads.

Timeline of The Dust Bowl

1931

Severe drouth hits the midwestern and southern fields. As the harvests die,

the & # 8216 ; black snowstorms ” Begin. Dust from the over-plowed and over-grazed land begins to

blow.

1932

The figure of dust storms is increasing. Fourteen are reported this twelvemonth ;

following twelvemonth there will be 38.

1933

March: When Franklin Roosevelt takes office, the state is in

despairing passs. He took speedy stairss to declare a four-day bank vacation, during which

clip Congress came up with the Emergency Banking Act of 1933, which stabilized the banking

industry and restored people & # 8217 ; s religion in the banking system by seting the federal

authorities behind it.

May: The Emergency Farm Mortgage Act allots $ 200 million for

refinancing mortgages to assist husbandmans confronting foreclosure. The Farm Credit Act of 1933

established a local bank and put up local recognition associations.

September: Over 6 million immature hogs are slaughtered to

stabilise monetary values With most of the meat traveling to blow, public call led to the creative activity,

in October, of the Federal Surplus Relief Corporation. The FSRC diverted agricultural

trade goods to relief organisations. Apples, beans, canned beef, flour and porc merchandises

were distributed through local alleviation channels. Cotton goods were finally included to

dress the needy every bit good.

October: In California & # 8217 ; s San Joaquin Valley, where many husbandmans

flying the fields have gone, seeking migratory farm work, the largest agricultural work stoppage

in America & # 8217 ; s history begins. More than 18,000 cotton workers with the Cannery and

Agricultural Workers Industrial Union ( CAWIU ) went on work stoppage for 24 yearss. During the

work stoppage, two work forces and one adult female were killed and 100s injured. In the colony, the

brotherhood was recognized by agriculturists, and workers were given a 25 per centum rise.

1934

May: Great dust storms spread from the Dust Bowl country. The

drouth is the worst of all time in U.S. history, covering more than 75 per centum of the state

and impacting 27 provinces badly.

June: The Frazier-Lemke Farm Bankruptcy Act is approved. This

act restricted the ability of Bankss to dispossess husbandmans in times of hurt. Originally

effectual until 1938, the act was renewed four times until 1947, when it expired.

Roosevelt marks the Taylor Grazing Act, which allows him to take up to 140 million estates

of federally-owned land out of the public sphere and set up graze territories that will

be carefully monitored. One of many New Deal attempts to change by reversal the harm done to the

land by overexploitation, the plan was able to collar the impairment, but couldn & # 8217 ; t undo the

historical harm.

December: The “ Yearbook of Agriculture ” for 1934

announces, “ Approximately

35 million estates of once cultivated land have

basically been destroyed for harvest production. . . . 100 million estates now in harvests have

lost all or most of the surface soil ; 125 million estates of land now in harvests are quickly losing

surface soil. . . “

1935

January 15: The federal authorities signifiers a Drought Relief

Service to organize alleviation activities. The DRS bought cowss in counties that were

designated exigency countries, for $ 14 to $ 20 a caput. Those unfit for human ingestion –

more than 50 per centum at the beginning of the plan & # 8211 ; were destroyed. The staying

cowss were given to the Federal Surplus Relief Corporation to be used in nutrient

distribution to households nationally. Although it was hard for husbandmans to give up

their herds, the cattle slaughter plan helped many of them avoid bankruptcy. “ The

authorities cowss purchasing plan was a God-send to many husbandmans, as they could non afford

to maintain their cowss, and the authorities paid a better monetary value than they could obtain in

local markets. ”

April 8: Roosevelt approves the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act,

which provides $ 525 million for drought alleviation, and authorizes creative activity of the Works

Progress Administration, which would use 8.5 million people.

April 14: Black Sunday. The worst “ black snowstorm ” of

the Dust Bowl occurs, doing extended harm.

April 27: Congress declares soil eroding “ a national

threat ” in an act set uping the Soil Conservation Service in the Department of

Agribusiness ( once the Soil Erosion Service in the U.S. Department of Interior ) . Under

the way of Hugh H. Bennett, the SCS developed extended preservation plans that

retained surface soil and prevented irreparable harm to the land. Farming techniques such as

strip cropping, terrassing, harvest rotary motion, contour ploughing, and cover harvests were advocated.

Farmers were paid to pattern soil-conserving agriculture techniques.

December: At a meeting in Pueblo, Colorado, experts estimate

that 850,000,000 dozenss of surface soil has blown off the Southern Plains during the class of

the twelvemonth, and that if the drouth continued, the entire country affected would increase from

4,350,000 estates to 5,350,000 estates in the spring of 1936. C.H. Wilson of the Resettlement

Administration proposes purchasing up 2,250,000 estates and retiring it from cultivation.

1936

February: Los Angeles Police Chief James E. Davis sends 125

police officers to police the boundary lines of Arizona and Oregon to maintain “ undesirables ”

out. As a consequence, the American Civil Liberties Union sues the metropolis.

May: The SCS publishes a dirt preservation territory jurisprudence, which,

if passed by the provinces, allows husbandmans to put up their ain territories to implement dirt

preservation patterns for five-year periods. One of the few grassroots organisations set

up by the New Deal still in operation, the dirt preservation territory plan recognized

that new farming methods needed to be accepted and enforced by the husbandmans on the land

instead than administrative officials in Washington.

1937

March: Roosevelt addresses the state in his 2nd inaugural

reference, stating, “ I see one-third of the state ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished

. . . the trial of our advancement is non whether we add more to the copiousness of those who

hold much ; it is whether we provide plenty for those who have excessively small. ”

FDR & # 8217 ; s Shelterbelt Project begins. The undertaking called for large-scale planting of

trees across the Great Plains, stretching in a 100-mile broad zone from Canada to northern

Texas, to protect the land from eroding. Native trees, such as ruddy cedar and green ash,

were planted along fencing rows dividing belongingss, and husbandmans were paid to works and

cultivate them. The undertaking was estimated to be 75 million dollars over a period of 12

old ages. When differences arose over support beginnings ( the undertaking was considered to be a

long-run scheme, and hence ineligible for exigency alleviation financess ) , FDR transferred

the plan to the WPA, where the undertaking had limited success.

1938

The extended work re-plowing the land into furrows, seting trees in windbreaks,

and other preservation methods has resulted in a 65 per centum decrease in the sum of

dirt blowing. However, the drouth continued.

1939

In the autumn, the rain comes, eventually conveying an terminal to the drouth. During the following

few old ages, with the coming of World War II, the state is pulled out of the Depression

and the fields one time once more go aureate with wheat.

Timeline

Beginning