James Gregory’s, American Exodus, is a book that focuses on Dust Bowl migration to California, and their economic and social struggles in California. The book first starts off setting up the historical context of the Dust Bowl and the migrants with statistics, maps, pictures, and migrant backgrounds in the introduction. The overall book reads like a history textbook on the Dust Bowl, which is divided into two parts instead of narrative based on one family like The Grapes of Wrath. The first part of the book is organized chronologically, focusing on the resettlement of the Dust Bowlers, and the second part is done thematically and focuses on Okie culture. Gregory’s approach successfully showed the clash of cultures and social struggles the migrants faced in California accurately without having to caricaturize the migrants.…
The Great Plains of the 1930’s was given the name dust bowl because of the massive dust storms caused by the failure to apply dryland farming methods to prevent wind erosion. Most people don't know that grass is an anchor for our soil. When farmers plow the grass up for miles at a time to plant wheat. These tactics mixed with the factors of drought, light soil and high winds cause a catastrophic chain of events known as the “black blizzards” or dust storms. These storms drove off over half of the Great Plain population because of the deaths of cattle and their ravaged pastures.…
In the “The Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck, we follow the Joads as they migrate from Oklahoma to California with family and friends in three stages. I believe that Steinbeck used unsophisticated protagonists and language for the sake of the general public. John Steinbeck wanted this book to be relatable to the public and for people to understand and relate to and feel compassion for the people who felt the hardships of the dust bowl the most. Steinbeck uses a lot of repetition making it easy to relate to the simple characters that Steinbeck has created for us.…
The 1930’s was a struggling time for people in the West because of the Dust Bowl, causing lots of problems with the way the people live and their land. This essay is going to explain how the Dust Bowl had developed and the different problems and effects on the people living in the West. To start off, the development of the Dust Bowl started off in 1930 but getting its name in April 15, 1935. The Dust Bowl as stated in passage 1 “The drought hit first in the eastern part of the country in 1930.…
“The dust hung in the air for a long time after the loaded cars had passed”(page 460 paragraph 20). This shows that people living on farmland had a very difficult time because the topsoil blew away in the massive dust storms and it destroyed the farmlands. They had to walk out of their homes with a cloth over their mouths to feed their animals. CS: In summary, the dust bowl had a very bad effect on people, making it hard to breathe and continue taking care of their farms and animals. The big drought in Oklahoma caused obstacles that felt as if they could never be overcome.…
The dirt to lost moisture and became loose due to the lack of rainfall. If no grass is in place to secure the soil, like in the 1930s, the dirt will be blown around, contributing to the development developing of a dust storm. Therefore, the drought that occurred during the 1930s certainly was a factor in causing the Dust Bowl. Although the…
Have you ever seen or heard of a drought so bad that it turned nice green hills into a desert of sand and dirt? Starting in the 1930s, in the eastern part of the country, a very bad drought did just that. It made its way west, and by 1934 it turned the Great Plains into a desert. In 1935 this drought was dubbed the Dust Bowl. The Dust Bowl had a huge effect on the daily lives of people and their homes, it wreaked havoc on their economy, and destroyed their land.…
By the end of the Dust Bowl over 250,000 were homeless. The Dust Bowl was a disastrous event caused by farmers over plowing the fields in the south, but there were terrible effects on farmers and their crops, animals, and daily lives. The Dust Bowl was caused by farmers but that doesn’t mean it didn’t affect them. Jackrabbits and grasshoppers (a.k.a. locus) weren’t necessarily bad unless you were a farmer.…
Both events resulted in troubled times for people and workers. People lost their homes, suffered from malnourishment and seemed to be struggling to make it through the day. This book focuses on the problems and results of the Dust Bowl, “the worst man-made ecological disaster in American history”. The Dust Bowl followed The Great Plow-up, which “turned 5.2 million acres of thick native grassland into wheat fields”. Eventually, the United States began to enter into the time of the depression and prices for crops began to sink.…
Prior to 1930, the area of the United States between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains (Great Plains) was lush with natural prairieland vegetation and abundant rainfall. It was these characteristics which made it seem ideal for westward development across the United States. However, during the 1930’s, the Great Plains endured a nine year period of severe droughts which lead to intense dust storms which killed crops, livestock and people. This time period has been consequently been labeled as the Dust Bowl.…
The Dust Bowl and Life in The 1930ś Introduction: The Dust Bowl was a tragic event in the Southern states that impacted families as many people died and had creased financial responsibilities, but different laws were put in place to help people in the Dust Bowl. The Great Plains suffered a drought between 1930-1940. This drought was caused by changes in weather, farming techniques, economic and cultural factors. Many people suffered during the Dust Bowl including crops and animals.…
This was very difficult for the farmers in the Southern Plains of the United States, because they were hit the worst. With hardly any precipitation it was difficult to get the crops to grow. The farm land was drying up with out the grassland, the winds stirred the dust. There were children dying from dust pneumonia. The question is what caused the Dust Bowl?…
Farming was the cause of the dust bowl but nobody knew that at first. People began calling these storms “Black Blizzards” because the sand moved around like snow and covered the sun so it was as black as night. Many people’s lives were at stake during this time period because of the dust. “Surviving the Dust Bowl is the remarkable story…
As crops were a farmer's main source of income and perhaps food, the ruining of their fields would have been a major obstacle. Throughout the time of the dust bowl, people had to take extreme measures to endure…
The 20th century marked a time of advancements. It is known as the Progressive Era. By this time not only was the nation changing, but so was the life of families. Family life drastically changed in the twentieth century. The traditional morals, values, and roles that families cherished all the decades before were beginning to vanish.…