Dust Bowl Essay

1230 words 5 pages
The Dust Bowl was a treacherous storm, which occurred in the 1930's, that affected the midwestern people, for example the farmers, and which taught us new technologies and methods of farming. As John Steinbeck wrote in his 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath: "And then the dispossessed were drawn west- from Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico; from Nevada and Arkansas, families, tribes, dusted out. Carloads, caravans, homeless and hungry; twenty thousand and fifty thousand and a hundred thousand and two hundred thousand. They streamed over the mountains, hungry and restless - restless as ants, scurrying to find work to do - to lift, to push, to pull, to pick, to cut - anything, any burden to bear, for food. The kids are hungry. We got no place …show more content…

In March, there were twenty-two days of dirt storms and drifts began to build in the fencerows. In late January 1933, the region was blasted by a horrible dirt storm, which killed almost all the wheat, but what was left was pretty much useless in making a profit. In early February, the thermometer dropped seventy-four degrees in eighteen hours to a record low at Boise City. Before the year was over, locals counted 139 dirty days in 1933. Although the dirt storms were fewer in 1934, it was the year, which brought the Dust Bowl national attention. In May, a severe storm blew dirt from Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas as Far East as New York City and Washington D.C. In spite of the terrific storm in May, the year 1934 was pleasant respite from the blowing dirt and tornadoes of the previous year. But nature had another trick up her sleeve, the year was extremely hot with new records being made and broken at regular intervals. Before the year had run its course, hundreds of people in Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas had died from the heat. In 1935, the weather in the Dust Bowl again made the national headlines. This storm was followed by another and yet another in rapid succession. A description of this storm of coming was made by a farmer:" The storm causes a tremendous amount of damage and suffering. A giant dust storm engulfs Boise City. Cyclic winds rolled up two miles high, stretched out a hundred miles and

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