Dust Blow
The Dust Bowl was the name given to the Great Plains region devastated by drought in 1930s depression-ridden America. The 150,000-square-mile area, encompassing the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles and neighboring sections of Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico, has little rainfall, light soil, and high winds, a potentially destructive combination. When drought struck from 1934 to 1937, the soil lacked the stronger root system of grass as an anchor, so the winds easily picked up the loose topsoil and swirled it into dense dust clouds, called "black blizzards." Recurrent dust storms wreaked havoc, choking cattle and pasture lands and driving 60 percent of the population from the region. Most of these "exodusters" went to agricultural areas first and then to cities, especially in the Far West.
The Great Depression
A U.S. stock market crash in 1929 sparked the decade-long international economic downturn known as the Great Depression. Civilian Conservation Corps
Formed in March 1933, the CCC, was a New Deal program intended to promote environmental conservation. Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd U.S. president (1933-1945), led the nation through both the Great Depression and World War II. The States
Stretching more than 3,000 miles from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the United States of America is comprised of 50 states, each with its own unique traditions and history.
Did You Know?
By 1940, more than 2.5 million people had fled from the regions affected by the Dust Bowl. Nearly 10 percent moved to California. Dust Bowl
Ranchers and farmers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, driven by the American agricultural ethos of expansion and a sense of autonomy from nature, aggressively exploited the land and set up the region for ecological disaster. Most early settlers used the land for livestock grazing until agricultural mechanization combined with high grain prices during World War I enticed farmers to plow up millions of acres of
The Great Depression
A U.S. stock market crash in 1929 sparked the decade-long international economic downturn known as the Great Depression. Civilian Conservation Corps
Formed in March 1933, the CCC, was a New Deal program intended to promote environmental conservation. Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd U.S. president (1933-1945), led the nation through both the Great Depression and World War II. The States
Stretching more than 3,000 miles from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the United States of America is comprised of 50 states, each with its own unique traditions and history.
Did You Know?
By 1940, more than 2.5 million people had fled from the regions affected by the Dust Bowl. Nearly 10 percent moved to California. Dust Bowl
Ranchers and farmers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, driven by the American agricultural ethos of expansion and a sense of autonomy from nature, aggressively exploited the land and set up the region for ecological disaster. Most early settlers used the land for livestock grazing until agricultural mechanization combined with high grain prices during World War I enticed farmers to plow up millions of acres of