America's Pain/Dustbowl
Hardships Caused by the Great DepressionNo one getting around it the Great Depression was tough in so many ways. My Grandpa still didn't trust banks till the day he died in 1996. We had to dig in the back yard for his saved cash! Suicides were at the highest rates in American history, in NYC some stockbrokers jumped to their death unable to deal with the fact their and many others fortunes were gone wiped away by the banks and mismanagement.
Unemployment was at 25% among whites and the African American community was hit especially hard with rates as high as 50%. Gender roles took a step back as many women were forced to give up their jobs in favor of men. Many children were orphaned or given up when their parents could not afford to feed them, some men just left their families, some in search of work, but others just left altogether. They were unable to take the hardships that no job and no prospects left them. To many the American dream was dead, killed by greed and an economic system that could not be sustained. The bright spot was the enormous sense of charity that was still present in America. Many churches and those that still had savings willingly gave to their fellow Americans. Bread lines and soup kitchens fed the hungry and supported families that were struggling. For all of the hardships we still fought and most would really come to appreciate the small pleasures of life. |
The Great Dustbowl1931 couldn't have been a worse year for farmers living in the Great Plains states; that is unless you count the years 1933, 1934, and 1935. In the middle of the Great Depression, a natural disaster arose so strange and devastating that, at first, the National Weather Service had a hard time explaining it. Of course, nobody had a name for something that had never occurred before. Soon, the words 'Dusters' and 'Dust Bowl' were applied to the 60 MPH storms of dirt that would sweep in without warning, blackening the skies and burying everything in its path in a thick layer of soil.
Between 1931 and 1936, nearly 75 storms struck the Texas panhandle, Oklahoma, Kansas, and surrounding Great Plains states. By the time it was done, at least 100 million acres of fertile topsoil had been blown away. Americans living outside of the 'Dust Bowl' states read about them with morbid fascination, but nothing short of first-hand experience could prepare you for just how strange this environmental disaster was. That is, until the winter of 1934. Bostononians looked up to the see the sky pouring down red snow. The red clay soil of the Great Plains had become so concrentated in the atmosphere that it was coming back down in the form of weather. In that same year, Chicago got dumped with 12 million pounds of dust. Dust even reportedly covered the desk of President Franklin D. Roosevelt-- 1,000 miles away in Washington D.C. Ecological Mistakes In the early 1900's modern technology mixed with agricultural stupidity. Farmers were trading in their horses and plows for modern tractors that could dig deeper and plow faster than any animal. The result was that even more acres of the the native short grasses that held the topsoil down could be easily torn from their roots. No one at the time saw this is as problem. In fact, many scientists of the day taught farmers that allowing native plants to grow in the fields after the harvest was harmful. (We know today that these plants prevent things like soil erosion.) And so, farmers continued to till the earth until it was ground into a fine dusty layer. This, they were told, was the sign of a healthy field. Fast forward to the winter of 1931, which came in like a kitten-- warm & cuddly but with sharp hidden claws. In many places the December temperature hit record highs. The winter was so mild that year became known as the 'year without a winter'. Then summer came around and everything went to hell. Months without rain and temperatures reached 118 degrees in many parts of the country created crisis drought conditions throughout the Great Plains. Despite what everyone predicted, the drought didn't pass the next year, or the year after that, or the next five years for that matter. For seven long years the Great Plains faced the worst drought in American history. To make matters worse, as a double-whammy the nation was in the middle of the worst economic disaster it had ever faced- The Great Depression was in full swing and jobs were scarce. In 1932, there were fourteen more dusters or black blizzards. When a 'duster' came raging through, the sky would turn dark as night. Peoplewere forced to light their oil lamps in the middle of the day. Many folks began carrying around masks and goggles to protect them from the flying sand. People covered their windows with wet sheets to trap the dust-- but it rarely did much good. Dust seemed to find its way into your home no matter what you did. Grit got into your clothes, your nose, your teeth and every other that people began calling dust pneumonia. But all of those dusters were just babies compared to the storm that hit on April 14, 1935 when a duster so massive hit, that it would go down in history as Black Sunday. That spring morning started off warm and bright. People headed home from church or to picnics when suddenly the temperature dropped by as much as fifty degrees. Some reported seeing thousands of birds take to the sky as an omen of something bad to come. Then, out of nowhere, a huge cloud appeared on the horizon- a 1,000 foot high wall of dust. The sun was blotted out of the sky and people ran for cover. Some could not outrun the 70 MPH winds and tried to cover themselves as best they could, struggling to breathe the whole time. Entire houses were buried by sand and later were so damaged that they had to be demolished. Millions of acres of newly planted wheat were destroyed. When it was over, rabbits, birds, cattle, and people lay dead. |