Americans During The Dust Bowl

The American people showed great determination during the Dust Bowl, by migrating to find new jobs. The Dust Bowl was a series of dust storms that started in 1934 due to a long drought, high heat, farming practices, and high winds (“Dust” 466). These dust storms battered the Great Plains, which run from South Dakota to Texas, creating “dust pneumonia” for the people who lived there (“Dust” 466, 467). Many people living in the Great Plain during this time decided to migrate to California, desperate to get a job, even if it was picking crops for low wages (“The Dust” 1). The millions of Americans living in the Great Plains during the time of the Dust Bowl had to endure extreme hardships, but they did not give up. Many left all that they had ever
known, to settle for an underpaying job, because they believed they could have a better life. The willpower, and determination seen in this group of people demonstrates the great amount of perseverance in the 1930s. Relief programs set up to help the people affected by the Dust Bowl, revealed the tenacity of the American government, who would not let their citizens and economy fall completely apart. The people impacted most by the Dust Bowl were the farmers, which accounted for over 20% of all American families (Deneke 2). The dust buried their farmhouses and equipment, while leaving over 100 million acres, unable to grow crops (“The Dust” 1; Deneke 1). However, President Roosevelt created relief programs to help individuals affected by the dust storms (“Dust” 468). In the hardest hit areas, almost 90% of all residents received federal emergency aid, which included farming supplies, food for livestock, and medical care (“The Dust” 3). President Roosevelt saw the needs of his people and worked furiously to meet them, directly benefitting one fourth of the American population. He refused to give up, and set an example of determination for all the American people. In the 1930s, strong public figures modeled the key quality of the decade: perseverance. In the wake of all this devastation, the country was persistent in preventing such an event forever occurring again by improving the quality of the soil in the Great Plains.
The Dust Bowl started due to overgrazing and farmers planting crops to replace the prairie grasses (“Dust” 466; “The Dust” 1). Without the prairie grass, the soil was not protected from the wind because the roots of the crops were not strong enough to hold it together (“Dust” 466). To combat this problem, President Roosevelt and the United States government helped farmers develop new techniques to preserve soil and protect crops. They also planted trees from Canada to Texas to act as a wind barrier, and bought more than eight million cattle to cut back on grazing. After all these measures, the area covered by the Dust Bowl shrank from what it was in 1938, 8.727 million acres, to 1.2 million acres by 1939 (“Dust” 468). These policies treated the disease, not the symptoms. In other words, they created a long term solution instead of a quick fix. Thinking of the future, instead of panicking about the present, takes incredible poise and resolve. In the present, these choices have benefitted millions of Americans by restoring rich soil to the Great Plains. The country was determined to end the Dust Bowl once and for all, proving “The Decade of Perseverance” is a fitting title for the 1930s. Economical devastation such as the Dust Bowl directly affected millions in the United States, forcing the country to actively work hard to survive. However, cultural figures such as Jesse Owens, inspired the country and set an example of what perseverance looks like on an individual
basis.