GREENWICH, N.Y. — The Dust Bowl was a man-made ecological disaster that affected the Great Plains in the 1930s. Years of poor farming practices and recurring droughts turned the region into a desert-like setting leading to a decade of poverty and hardship for its inhabitants.
The Great Plains stretch from the Dakotas and Montana in the north down to parts of Texas and New Mexico including states of Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and parts of Colorado, and Wyoming. For centuries the landscape consisted of wide-open spaces of sod soil, out which grew a series of prairie grasses like buffalo grass and blue grama. The region was known for its inhospitable climate and weather. Temperatures could soar to sweltering or plunge below freezing depending on the time of year. High winds, hailstorms, blizzards, fires, and drought were all potential weather features. However, the grasslands kept the land viable for the various prairie animals and birds and Native American tribes like the Sioux, Comanche, and Cheyenne who lived there (Egan, p.112-113).
The causes of the Dust Bowl came from several sources in the decades prior to the 1930s. In 1862 the Homestead Act opened large swaths of government-owned land for settlement offering farmers 160 acres of land in exchange for working it for five years. Many of these initial settlers ended up in parts of the Midwest. Expansions to the Homestead Act by way of the Kinkaid Act (1904) and the Enlarged Homestead Act (1909) drew more settlers further west to areas that were not conducive to farming in the early 20th century.
Land development companies promoted settlement of the semi-arid regions of the Plains through outright deceit by advertising the lands as better than they actually were, and through the concept of “rain follows the plow.” This old theory of climatology put forth the claim that the climate of an area would change with the implementation of settlement and farming. While unscientific it appeared to be true at the time because the Plains were in a wetter than normal weather pattern for several years making for better farming conditions. Therefore, farmers set about plowing the Plains growing row crops, predominantly wheat.
Production ramped up in World War I as more wheat was needed for the war effort. Prices remained high after the war, so farmers made profits into the 1920s. However, a combination of economic and technological factors soon began to change farmers’ financial stability.
New technologies, mainly the tractor, allowed for farmers to work more land, more efficiently. To purchase these technologies farmers often took on debt. Also, crop prices steadily fell through the 1920s and the Great Depression began in 1929. In order to make a profit and pay debts in this difficult economic setting, farmers opted to plant more in hopes of a greater harvest to offset these factors.
The push to plant more caused farmers to plow up more land, much of which was submarginal since the best farmland was already in use. By this time farmers were using the one-way disc plow method of cultivating. Although more efficient it increased the risk of blowing soil. In their efforts to produce large yields many farmers at this time also stopped employing soil-friendly farming practices. This concurrence of factors made the land vulnerable to erosion and less resistant to drought.
Then the droughts came. Beginning in 1930 a series of drought periods plagued the Plains region for a decade. The Great Plains had gone through droughts before and the land was able to sustain itself due to the prairie grasses. The grasses could withstand the heat and its roots held the sod underneath in place. However, with the grasses and sod plowed up the land no longer had this resilient factor. When the drought and heat came the row crops were unable to withstand it and the eroded, soddy soil blew away in the winds. (Egan p. 112-113)
The land and farmers’ prospects in the Dust Bowl region deteriorated quickly. After producing a record wheat crop of 250 million bushels in 1931, one-third of farmers on the Plains faced foreclosure due to back taxes or debt one year later in 1932 (Egan, p. 104). By 1934 35 million acres of land had been rendered unusable to farming due to erosion and drought. By the end of the Dust Bowl the around 100 million acres of land would be affected to varying degrees. No crops were able to grow on the parched land and those that did were underdeveloped or not worth harvesting. Livestock farmers suffered too. Without regular feed sources farmers resorted to feeding their animals tumbleweeds and other undesirable plants. Cattle starved or died from what was called “dust fever.” Dairy cows went dry, and chickens could not survive either (Egan, p. 140-141).
While all the Plains states and parts of the Midwest were affected to some degree by the droughts, the hardest hit place was an area of land that included southern Colorado, southwestern Kansas, the Oklahoma and Texas Panhandles, and northeastern New Mexico (Egan, p. 153). The ever-present winds of these states blew the eroded soil everywhere. Dust blew like snowdrifts which people had to shovel and plow off roads and railways. Powerful dust storms called “black blizzards” or “dusters” would frighteningly tear through areas darkening the sun and burying landscapes. These storms, sometimes stretching miles long and towering miles high, were painful with the coarse soil swiping hard against a person’s skin. They produced an incredible amount of static electricity that would stall the vehicles of drivers who may be caught out on the roads (Egan, p. 88).
Dust became a constant in the lives of the region’s inhabitants. Residents had to seal all windows or openings of any kind as the dust invaded homes and businesses through any crevice it could seep through. Despite these efforts a thin layer of dust would inevitably cover every surface in homes forcing owners to constantly clean or learn to live with it. When conditions were poor people would venture outside with Vaseline applied to their noses, wetted handkerchiefs, or masks of some kind to avoid breathing the dusty air. People avoided handshakes since the prevalence of static electricity in the air could cause a serious jolt when clasping hands (Egan, p. 153). Some people developed breathing problems or even died because of the dusty air in a condition that came to be called “dust pneumonia.”
One homesteader named Caroline Henderson described the conditions in a letter to the Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace in 1935 writing:
“There are days when for hours at a time we cannot see the wind-mill fifty feet from the kitchen door. There are days when for briefer periods one cannot distinguish the windows from the solid wall because of the solid blackness of the raging storm… This wind-driven dust, fine as the finest flour, penetrates wherever air can go. After one such storm, I scraped up a dustpanful of this pulverized soil in the first preliminary cleaning of the bathtub! It is a daily task to unload the leaves of the geraniums and other houseplants, borne down by the weight of the dust settled upon them… Dust to eat, and dust to breathe and dust to drink. Dust in the beds and in the flour bin, on dishes and walls and windows, in hair and eyes and ears and teeth and throats.”
On occasion the problem was not confined to the Plains. Some of the dusters grew so large that they carried dust to states on the east coast. One of these storms occurred May 11, 1934. The storm which started in the west brought dust that obscured the streets of New York City, blanketed the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. and covered ships in the harbors of some mid-Atlantic states. On April 14, 1935 the worst known black blizzard began in Oklahoma and stretched north and south reaching Texas and the Dakotas. Throughout its path the storm uplifted and swirled thousands of pounds of topsoil that were in its path. While reporting on this storm an Associated Press reporter named Robert Geiger coined the term “Dust Bowl” to describe the area and the name stuck.
To get through these dire circumstances many in affected areas relied on government relief. After assuming the presidency in 1933 Franklin Roosevelt began instituting his New Deal programs to try and lift the nation from the Great Depression. Some of these programs sought to address the drought gripping the Dust Bowl area. The Shelterbelt Project, later called the Prairie States Forestry Project, was instituted to fight wind erosion by planting trees. This project employed a combination of local farmers, Civilian Conservation Corps workers, and Works Progress Administration workers to plant a continuous line of trees stretching from North Dakota to Texas to act as a windbreak from the Dust Bowl’s destructive winds. The project ended up planting around 200 million trees in the region.
Civilian Conservation Corps teams also installed contour lines which use terracing to minimize water runoff. The Soil Erosion Service, now called the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), was created to develop and educate on farming practices that would limit erosion.
The government also provided direct economic, farm/ranch, and medical relief through various drought-related programs. By 1936 21% of rural families on the Great Plains were receiving federal emergency aid. By the end of the 1930s drought-related assistance may have totaled around $1 billion dollars in all.
Apart from these governmental aids, farmers relied on resourcefulness, grit, determination, perseverance, and a consistent faith that times would get better. Due to loyalty or stubbornness, or a combination of the two, some people did not want to leave their land. Even though the environment seemed set against them they did not want to give up on land that they called their own. For those that stayed conditions began to improve in 1939 when rains started to come back. By 1941 normal rainfall patterns returned to the region ending the Dust Bowl. This coupled with the onset of World War II helped improve the economic situation of farmers.
The fact that the Dust Bowl was partially a man-made catastrophe helped establish the use of more soil-friendly farming techniques and measures that take a proactive approach against droughts. These practices are still used today and are continually evolving. In response to the Dust Bowl several governmental conservation agencies like the NRCS and the U.S. Grazing Service were founded to help better preserve and manage the nation’s natural resources. These practices were put to the test when drought returned to the region in the 1950s. However, its effects were not as bad because of better management of the land. The Dust Bowl was also a part of the Great Depression era’s implementation of large-scale government relief in response to disasters. This was something that had never been done on that scale up to that time.
While some farmers opted to trudge on through the sufferings of the Dust Bowl and remained in their home areas, a great many made the hard decision to escape the Dust Bowl and seek opportunities further West. Stay tuned for this part of the Dust Bowl’s story which will be featured in next week’s Hansen’s Histories.
Chandler Hansen grew up and lives in Easton, NY. He is a graduate of Gordon College where he earned a bachelor’s degree in History. He serves as a writer and editor for Morning Ag Clips.
