What states were most affected by the Dust Bowl? One hundred million acres of the Southern Plains
Great Plains
The Great Plains is a broad expanse of flat land, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, and grassland, located in North America. It lies west of the Mississippi River tallgrass prairie in the United States and east of the Rocky Mountains in the U.S. and Canada.
What states were hit the hardest by the Dust Bowl?
Key Takeaways
- The Dust Bowl worsened the Great Depression by wreaking havoc on U.S. agriculture and livestock
- Severe drought and bad farming procedures eroded the topsoil
- The Great Plains could turn into a Dust Bowl again if the Ogallala Aquifer is drained dry
What states suffered the most damage from the Dust Bowl?
The map below shows that Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Texas were probably the most effected states. It also shows that parts of Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Missouri, and Iowa were also affected. Plus, maybe some parts of Arkansas.
What states were damaged by the Dust Bowl?
“The Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms that really damaged the agriculture of the US and during the 1930s. The Dust Bowl was a severe drought that has started to ruin the agriculture. When this happened the states including Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico were affected” (Steinbeck).
Why were the states impacted by the Dust Bowl?
The Dust Bowl was caused by several economic and agricultural factors, including federal land policies, changes in regional weather, farm economics and other cultural factors. After the Civil War, a series of federal land acts coaxed pioneers westward by incentivizing farming in the Great Plains. Where did farmers go during the Dust Bowl?
What states did the Dust Bowl affect the most?
The Dust Bowl was the name given to the drought-stricken Southern Plains region of the United States, which suffered severe dust storms during a dry period in the 1930s. As high winds and choking dust swept the region from Texas to Nebraska, people and livestock were killed and crops failed across the entire region.
Who was most affected by the Dust Bowl?
The areas most affected were the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma, northeastern New Mexico, southeastern Colorado, and southwestern Kansas. The Dust Bowl was to last for nearly a decade [1].
How many states did the Dust Bowl affect?
Nineteen states in the heartland of the United States became a vast dust bowl. With no chance of making a living, farm families abandoned their homes and land, fleeing westward to become migrant laborers.
Where was the Dust Bowl the worst?
The agricultural land that was worst affected by the Dust Bowl was 16 million acres (6.5 million hectares) of land by the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles.
Where is the Dust Bowl?
Dust Bowl, section of the Great Plains of the United States that extended over southeastern Colorado, southwestern Kansas, the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma, and northeastern New Mexico. Abandoned farmstead in the Dust Bowl region of Oklahoma, showing the effects of wind erosion, 1937.
What were the shelterbelts in the Dust Bowl?
The wind erosion was gradually halted with federal aid. Windbreaks known as shelterbelts—swaths of trees that protect soil and crops from wind—were planted, and much of the grassland was restored. By the early 1940s the area had largely recovered. Dust Bowl: windbreaks.
What is the Dust Bowl poster?
Dust Bowl: USDA poster. A U.S. Department of Agriculture poster from the Dust Bowl era urging farmers on the Great Plains to plant windbreaks (also known as shelterbelts) to halt erosion. U.S. Department of Agriculture. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Subscribe Now.
How many people fled the Plains?
…whole area into a vast Dust Bowl and destroyed crops and livestock in unprecedented amounts. As a result, some 2.5 million people fled the Plains states, many bound for California, where the promise of sunshine and a better life often collided with the reality of scarce, poorly paid work as…
Who was the woman who left the Dust Bowl?
Dorothea Lange —Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (reproduction no. LC-USF34-T01-016453-E) Thousands of families were forced to leave the Dust Bowl at the height of the Great Depression in the early and mid-1930s.
Who sang "Do Re Mi" and "Dust Bowl Refugee"?
Their plight was characterized in songs such as “Dust Bowl Refugee” and “ Do Re Mi” by folksinger Woody Guthrie, an Oklahoman who had joined the parade of those headed west in search of work. That experience was perhaps most famously depicted in John Steinbeck ’s novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939).
How many trees were planted in the 1935 shelterbelt?
A swath of three-year-old trees forming a windbreak (also known as a shelterbelt), part of a 1935 federal project that saw the planting of some 200 million trees in a 100-mile wide (160-km), 1,000-mile (1,600-km) long barricade meant to halt the wind erosion that had decimated a section of the Great Plains known as the Dust Bowl.
How much dust did the Dust Bowl remove?
Beginning on May 9, 1934, a strong, two-day dust storm removed massive amounts of Great Plains topsoil in one of the worst such storms of the Dust Bowl. The dust clouds blew all the way to Chicago, where they deposited 12 million pounds of dust (~ 5500 tonnes).
How much of the topsoil was blown away by the Dust Bowl?
In many regions, more than 75% of the topsoil was blown away by the end of the 1930s. Land degradation varied widely. Aside from the short-term economic consequences caused by erosion, there were severe long-term economic consequences caused by the Dust Bowl.
How much did the Dust Bowl cost in 1936?
The Dust Bowl forced tens of thousands of poverty-stricken families, who were unable to pay mortgages or grow crops, to abandon their farms, and losses reached $25 million per day by 1936 (equivalent to $470,000,000 in 2020).
What caused the Dust Bowl?
The Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s; severe drought and a failure to apply dryland farming methods to prevent the aeolian processes (wind erosion) caused the phenomenon.
How many people moved out of the Plains?
The Dust Bowl exodus was the largest migration in American history within a short period of time. Between 1930 and 1940, approximately 3.5 million people moved out of the Plains states; of those, it is unknown how many moved to California. In just over a year, over 86,000 people migrated to California.
Why was the Great Plains considered unsuitable for agriculture?
During early European and American exploration of the Great Plains, this region was thought unsuitable for European-style agriculture; explorers called it the Great American Desert. The lack of surface water and timber made the region less attractive than other areas for pioneer settlement and agriculture.
Where was the Dust Bowl in 1935?
A dust storm approaches Stratford, Texas, in 1935. The Dust Bowl area lies principally west of the 100th meridian on the High Plains, characterized by plains which vary from rolling in the north to flat in the Llano Estacado.
Overview
Geographic characteristics and early history
With insufficient understanding of the ecology of the plains, farmers had conducted extensive deep plowing of the virgin topsoil of the Great Plains during the previous decade; this had displaced the native, deep-rooted grasses that normally trapped soil and moisture even during periods of drought and high winds. The rapid mechanization of farm equipment, especially small gasoline t…
Drought and dust storms
After fairly favorable climatic conditions in the 1920s with good rainfall and relatively moderate winters, which permitted increased settlement and cultivation in the Great Plains, the region entered an unusually dry era in the summer of 1930. During the next decade, the northern plains suffered four of their seven driest calendar years since 1895, Kansas four of its twelve driest, a…
Human displacement
This catastrophe intensified the economic impact of the Great Depression in the region.
In 1935, many families were forced to leave their farms and travel to other areas seeking work because of the drought (which at that time had already lasted four years). The abandonment of homesteads and financial ruin resulting from cat…
Government response
The greatly expanded participation of government in land management and soil conservation was an important outcome from the disaster. Different groups took many different approaches to responding to the disaster. To identify areas that needed attention, groups such as the Soil Conservation Service generated detailed soil maps and took photos of the land from the sky. To create shelterbelts to reduce soil erosion, groups such as the United States Forestry Service's Pr…
Long-term economic impact
In many regions, more than 75% of the topsoil was blown away by the end of the 1930s. Land degradation varied widely. Aside from the short-term economic consequences caused by erosion, there were severe long-term economic consequences caused by the Dust Bowl.
By 1940, counties that had experienced the most significant levels of erosion had a greater decline in agricultural land values. The per-acre value of farmland declined by 28% in high-erosio…
Influence on the arts and culture
The crisis was documented by photographers, musicians, and authors, many hired during the Great Depression by the federal government. For instance, the Farm Security Administration hired numerous photographers to document the crisis. Artists such as Dorothea Lange were aided by having salaried work during the Depression. She captured what have become classic images of the dust st…
Changes in agriculture and population on the Plains
Agricultural land and revenue boomed during World War I, but fell during the Great Depression and the 1930s. The agricultural land that was worst affected by the Dust Bowl was 16 million acres (6.5 million hectares) of land by the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles. These twenty counties that the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Soil Conservation Service identified as the worst wind-eroded region were home to the majority of the Great Plains migrants during the Dust Bowl.