The Dust Bowl: The Fragility Of Our Soil

Decent Essays
The Dust Bowl demonstrates the fragility of our soil, and the need for us to care for it. The Topsoil that had taken numerous years per inch to grow unexpectedly blew away in only minutes. Those who survived the Dust bowl have a tale, they undergo drought, dust, disease—even death—for nearly a

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    The juxtaposition of chapters 14 and 15 show the opposing points of view during the Dust Bowl. Chapter 14 shows the plight of the weary, of the poor, and of the farmers. Chapter 15, on the other hand, illustrates the perspective of the small store owners, the people who are neither wealthy nor impoverished. The collocation of the two chapters emphasizes the vast, gaping difference in wealth and social standing between the laborers and the company owners at the time, and it also allows the reader to view the situation from a reasonably unbiased perspective. Chapter 14, in comparison to 15, highlights the nervousness and fear the poor feel.…

    • 381 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Dust Bowl Dbq

    • 105 Words
    • 1 Pages

    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.…

    • 105 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The Great Depression was a long ten year struggle for America. Times were rough from the New York City streets to the Great Plains. Banks began to close on an everyday basis. In Donald Worsters book "Dust Bowl" he writes about the Great Plains and how the people have struggled through out "the dirty thirties". In Chapter 9 "Unsettled Ground" George Taton Believes that if people would have just gave up trying to plant seed in dust that mother nature would have fixed the Plains in half the time it had took.…

    • 1090 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Dust Bowl Dbq

    • 424 Words
    • 2 Pages

    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.…

    • 424 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Dust Bowl caused hundreds and thousands of death. In conclusion, the Dust Bowl affected may of the family dynamics. This was a big tragedy and if we take care of our farms this will never happen…

    • 874 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Dust Bowl DBQ

    • 1142 Words
    • 5 Pages

    In the 1930s, America went from a prospering world power to a struggling nation in need of assistance. After the start if the Great Depression in 1929, America’s financial situation was suffering; unemployment rates reached as high as twenty five percent during the depression and millions of families lost their incomes, while thousands of small businesses closed their doors. Therefore, wWhen an envionmental crisis known as the Dust Bowl began in the 1930s, those living in farms were not keen on the idea of moving to larger cities, in fact, most people living in the Dust Bowl region chose not to move to other regions despite how destructive, dangerous, and common dust storms were. Avid Carlson described the scene during the Dust Bowl at night.…

    • 1142 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    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.…

    • 1186 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    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.…

    • 495 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Dust Bowl Dbq

    • 495 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Not conscious of the drought to come, farmers began to plow mile after mile of land in hopes of turning every inch of the south into profit. By the summer of 1931, rain stopped and whirlwinds became larger and thicker than usual. The land was naked and fields were blown out. As dust rose into the atmosphere…

    • 495 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Dust Bowl Research Paper

    • 463 Words
    • 2 Pages

    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.…

    • 463 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Dust Bowl Dbq

    • 559 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Donald Woster, the Hall of Distinguished Professor of American History at the University of Kansas, once said “Suddenly there appeared on the northern horizon a black blizzard, moving toward them; there was no sound, no wind, nothing but an immense ‘boogery’ cloud.” This quote sums up the horror of the infamous Dust Bowl. However, this was not the first time that a natural disaster had a personal or economic effect on the country.…

    • 559 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Dust Bowl Research Paper

    • 718 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Dust Bowl In the 1930’s and the early 1940’s, the southwestern Great Plains region of the United States suffered a severe drought in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, Chicago, New York, Atlanta, and Kansas. Once a semi-arid grassland, the treeless plains became home to thousands of settlers when, in 1862, Congress passed the Homestead Act. Most of the settlers farmed their land or raised cattle. The farmers plowed the prairie grasses and planted dryland wheat.…

    • 718 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    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…

    • 1550 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Farmers tore up the topsoil and when the drought and wind came the poor farming methods allowed it to take the top sail away, resulting in a desert like landscape. Many natural events also helped cause the Dust Bowl. When the rain stopped it kill the plants and old root systems of the plains, this allowed the dirt to be loose on the surface. When the winds came they had no problem of taking soil with it creating small twisters on the fields. After the winds continued without rain it escalated and eventually the harmless twisters turned…

    • 521 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Grand Slam of Soil Conservation Just imagine, you’re in a softball game, you have just rounded third base and are trying to beat the ball home. In a desperate effort to score; you slide, and dust flies- making it momentarily impossible to see. Your eyes, nose, and mouth are covered in the freshly raked earth of the ball field. This scenario is something that most of us today can relate to. But in the early 1900s, in several counties across Oklahoma and throughout the Great Plains, many days when men, women, and children would venture from their homes, the dirt they were overwhelmed with wasn’t part of a fun and thrilling ball game; it was from one of the most devastating man-made ecological disasters in American history.…

    • 896 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays