Dust Bowl

Dust Bowl

Dust bowl was the biggest environmental disaster in American history during great depression. It was darkest moment in the 1930’s. The core of dustbowl was in Texas, Oklahoma, southwestern Kansas, southeastern Colorado, and New Mexico. This phenomenon was caused by drought, erosion, and dust storms or “black blizzard”. It was an effect of poor agricultural practices without techniques to prevent wind erosion. In the 1930’s, farming was the major growing production in the United States. Most farmers started for farming cotton, wheat, and corn in overproduction in Great Plains. In the other hand, the world could not buy all of the crops which farmers produced. As the result, the prices were pushed downward. It caused the flood of farm commodities in the world market.

Furthermore, the farmers cared only about the profit. They plowed prairie which they should not make it for planting. In common driest conditions, native prairie vegetation kept surface of soil to strong winds. Because of that improper farming and the lack of rain in drought, the crop started dying. Unfortunately, the lost of soil fertility which was accompanied by the drought turned to dust storms. The biggest dust storms destroyed everything in 1935. The farmers suffered. They lost their livestock. They had to wear masks and clean their house from the dust every morning. After several times, some of them died because of a new epidemic. This epidemic was called "dust pneumonia."

In this case, the plain which was attacked by dust storm is known as Dust Bowl. The Dust Bowl coincided with the Great Depression. Usually, the farmers were already in debt. They borrowed money for seed and paid it back when harvested the crops. Because of these storms, the farmer could not feed himself and his family and paid back the debt. In addition, tax delinquency became a serious problem. Then, Banks foreclosed their farms and their house. The farmers were homeless and unemployed. It forced them to leave...