The Dust Bowl
Reading the incredible novel ‘The Four Winds’ by Kristin Hannah inspired me to research the Dust Bowl. The novel follows one family’s experience surviving the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. Kristin has become one of my favorite authors. I really appreciate the detail that she puts into her stories and she 100% delivered those details for this book as well. If you haven’t already tuned in, I discuss this novel more in depth in my latest podcast episode (Episode 3). You can listen to this podcast through Apple Podcast, Spotify, or Google Podcast. You can also access it through my website, here.
The book describes the struggles of these people so vividly, I couldn’t help but dive into the history and write a blog post outlining the information I gathered on this time period. I know I can’t be the only one out there who is curious to know more about it! So, let’s get to it. The Dust Bowl is a term used to describe this decade-long drought in the Great Plains of the United States during the 1930’s. What caused this event to happen? Well, the short answer is: people.
Allow me to expand on that a little more, you see… a lot changed in the years following the Civil War. Thanks to higher birth rates and immigration, there was a drastic increase in the United States population during the 1800’s. The idea of Manifest Destiny - a phrase coined in 1845 that defined America’s obsession with expanding its territory all the way to the Pacific Ocean - played a big role. There were also several economic crises that occurred, including another depression that was the second longest in America’s history (the first being The Great Depression of the 1930’s). All of this motivated people to head out West in search of new opportunities. In addition, The Homestead Act of 1862, Kinkaid Act of 1904, and the Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909 encouraged Americans to move westward into the Great Plains by offering hundreds of free acres to those willing to farm in the semi-arid climate.
Unfortunately, this region of the United States was seeing higher than normal rainfall during this time. This led to A LOT of misconceptions about the climate in this area. Furthermore, many of these settlers had no experience in farming and believed in a false superstition that ‘the rain follows the plow.’ This, along with many farmers' inexperience, led to incorrect farming techniques and over-farming of the land. It gets worse, World War 1 increased the demand for wheat through the 1920’s, which in turn also increased wheat prices. Millions of acres of grassland were plowed to accommodate the explosive demand. Then, the Great Depression hit and wheat prices crashed. Farmers plowed even more land to plant ‘bumper crops’ (extra crops that would provide more goods to sell) with the hope that they would break-even. Then, the drought of 1931 came followed by a series of droughts that lasted until 1939. These droughts left the land bone dry and revealed the bare and over-plowed fields. The native prairie grass, which naturally held the rich topsoil of the Great Plains in place, had been completely torn up. The topsoil was then free to blow around wherever the wind would take it…and it most certainly did.
It’s hard to wrap my head around this number, but 100 million acres of land became dead-zone. This dead-zone was mostly located in Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, and Texas. The rich topsoil of the Great Plains used to be six feet deep. By 1930, about four generations had been incorrectly farming this land. Millions of tons of topsoil was plowed up and disrupted… and then dried out from the drought. Believe it or not, static electricity built up between the earth and the dust and acted as a magnet- pulling the dust up and gathering it. This created what would is now known as ‘dust storms.’ Cold fronts drove these dust storm across the prairies at up to 65 mph. Some storms got up to 10,000 feet high and created enough static electricity to fuel New York City. 1934 held the longest and most wide reaching drought in the last millennium. During this year, temperatures consistently exceeded 100 degrees Fahrenheit for several weeks across the Great Plains. When historians say the land became ‘bone dry’ they mean it. As a result, when the spring of 1935 arrived there was even more dust to blow around. It was on April 14, 1935 that the worst dust storm occurred: ‘Black Sunday’ lasted for hours. Reports state that it took a clear, sunny day and turned it 'black as night.’
Many people tried to protect themselves from the dust. They wore masks, used vaseline to line their noses, tried to fill-in cracks in their homes and along windows and doors. But the dust travelled into even the most well-sealed houses. People became sick with what was known as ‘dust pneumonia.’ Cows and other livestock died and were cut open to find dust filling their internal organs. Obviously, no crops were being produced and therefore farmers couldn’t pay their mortgages and lost their properties. Roughly 2.5 million people left the Dust Bowl states during this decade. Oklahoma alone lost 440,000 people to migration. Because most of the migrants came from Oklahoma, Dust Bowl refugees were called “Okies” regardless of what state they actually originated from. Okies faced discrimination, degrading labor and horrible wages upon reaching California. Many of them lived in shanty towns and tents along irrigation ditches.
Franklin D. Roosevelt became president in 1933 and was faced with the almost impossible task of saving the nation’s economy. The government incentivized farmers to stop plowing part of their lands. President Roosevelt ordered the Civilian Conservation Corps to plant the Great Plains Shelterbelt, a huge belt of more than 200 million trees from Canada to Abilene, Texas. These trees were planted with the intent to break the wind, hold water in the soil, and hold the soil in place. These interventions, along with the end of the drought in 1941 and the start of World War 2 (since it helped boost the economy), officially ended this era in American history.
One more topic I would like to discuss that is related to all of this is the famous photo known as the ‘Migrant Mother.’ This photo was taken by a government official named Dorothea Lange in March of 1936. Lange was working for the Farm Security Administration and was documenting what was happening out West. Lange had stopped by a migrant workers campsite where she ran into the mother in the photo. Lange was normally one to take extensive notes - but for some reason or another didn’t with this photo. All that she wrote down was that this woman was a mother of seven and she was thirty-two years old. Lange didn’t have a name or any history. Somewhere along the way, Lange was led to believe that this woman and her family had just sold the tires to their car for food. It’s reported that Lange deviated even further from her normal procedures. Instead of sending the photos back to her administration in Washington D.C., she sent the film directly to San Francisco News, who ran the picture promptly. One could apply modern terms and say this picture went viral.
It was posted in newspapers, magazines, and even used on stamps. This photo became a well known symbol for the Great Depression era. It wasn’t until about forty years later that the woman in the photo identified herself. Her name was Florence Owens Thompson and she wasn’t happy with the inaccurate story surrounding her photo. Apparently Lange had told her that this photo wouldn’t be published… but it was and Florence felt exposed all these years. You see, Florence was a full-blooded Native American (both of her parents were Cherokee). She was originally from Oklahoma, but when she married her first husband, they moved to California in the 1920’s and found farm and mill work. Her husband died of tuberculosis in 1931 and Florence was left to support six children on her own. Florence had been picking crops for several years before migrants even came to town. Lange only found Florence at the migrant camp because their car had broken down. Florence’s partner and two older sons were in town with the car getting it fixed. They were on their way to another farm to pick lettuce. When Florence hit hard times and was diagnosed with several medical issues in the early 1980’s, her children solicited for donations to cover her healthcare costs. Over 2,000 people responded and $35,000 was raised. It helped Florence and her children see this image in a different light… no longer did it invoke shame. In fact, that shame morphed into pride. After her death in September 1983, her identity as the ‘Migrant Mother’ was forever solidified as her gravestone reads: "FLORENCE LEONA THOMPSON Migrant Mother – A Legend of the Strength of American Motherhood."
I hope y’all enjoyed my little recap of the history surrounding “The Four Winds”. What a complicated time in American history in so many ways! If you have anything to add, please make sure to comment (below).
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