Dust Bowl

Have you ever had a recurring nightmare? Chances are you have, they are very common. And believe it or not America has had one too. During the the early 1900’s America was involved in an extreme depression, caused by the crash of the Stock Market. nearly 50 years later, America is yet again at bay with another economic struggle. Both recessions that occurred left America vulnerable yet again. The Roaring Twenties was an iconic time in the early 1900’s. The prohibition on alcohol was ratified,…

Given the presence of photographic approaches and documentary evidence in the 1930’s, it seems as if the events of the Great Depression took place in black and white. Artists were forced to react to the changing times, or risk losing their job. In response, the 1930’s became a time of documentary photography and expression. Artists began to explore alternate routes of showcasing their talents, all with the intention of revealing the reality that was the Great Depression. Seeing this new…

Social identity, the classification and organization of heterogeneous people based on physical characteristics, is perhaps, one of the most prominent abstraction used in modern discourse. The need to belong to a group has increased; though identification has played a role in how we perceive ourselves and those around us, unfortunately at least one group is put at a disadvantage due to the categorized label that society condemns them off. In Charles Cunningham’s article, To Watch the Faces of the…

market crashed, America's economy had hit a critical blow. Millions of Americans were becoming unemployed and businesses were suffering nationwide. Farmers were also suffering greatly but it wasn’t just due to the Dust Bowl. In the west long before the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, farmers of the west were plagued by constant floods and droughts from the Colorado River. At first, people sought to use the river for travel purposes but many failed due to the rivers raging rapids. So once it…

Great Depression and The Stock Market Crash The Great Depression peaked in 1932. It got so bad, that over 6,000 people walked the streets in New York City trying to sell apples for 5 cents each. When the stock market crashed in 1929, it took until 1954 for the stock market to return to pre-depression. The average income of the American family dropped by 40 percent from 1929 to 1932. Income fell from $2,300 to $1,500 per year. The Great Depression and The Stock Market Crash was an iconic and a…

The 1930s was a time of important yet tragic events in the history of the United States. The Dust Bowl had eroded and destroyed much of the land in southern plains. The land was so arid that many people couldn't make a living from farming in the area anymore. This forced people in the area to migrate to find work to feed their families. Many of these migrant workers moved to the state of California, having hope that one day they could rebuild their old lives. John Steinbeck, the author of “Of…

The Grapes of Wrath is a book that was written by John Steinbeck and was later turned into a movie. The storyline of The Grapes of Wrath follows a family during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. The name of the family that Steinbeck chooses to follow through this novel is the Joad family . The novel, as well as the movie, tells the story of how this family lost the land that they had been sharecroppers on for years and decides to follow the migration going to the west, and to travel to…

The Grapes of Wrath is a novel about the Joad family living in the Oklahoma Dust Bowl during the era of the Great Depression. They were driven off their land and decided to travel to California in search of jobs, land, and a better future. However, California was not what they expected it to be. Throughout the novel, there were many struggles for the Joads but Ma Joad was the most resilient and strongest character in the story. In the novel, the narrator describes Ma as the backbone of the…

The 1930’s were a period riddled by economic depression, dubbed the “Great Depression”, the economic mishaps of the 1930’s leaked out into affecting every facet of society, even the pop culture. The troublesome economics of the 30’s were overlooked by pop culture, as it deliberately used exaggerations and optimism to distract people from the reality of recession; while pop culture candidly documented political America in the 30’s, in which people were in search of a political hero. Bridled by…

The Great Depression the United States in the 1930s; the wealthy, the poor, and the rest of the world feeling its impact. During the Great Depression, man Americans lost their jobs, famers experienced the Dust Bowl, and women took care of their families with what little resources they had. With no system to help families that lost their source of income, 40 million people fell into poverty – most families unused to the pain of hunger and lack of funds to support their families. Although the…