Still, children and adults inhaled sand, coughed up dirt, and died of a new epidemic called "dust pneumonia.". Decades later, the land is still not completely restored. We are here to stay” (quoted in Hurt, 1981). The dust storms started at about the same time that the Great Depression really began to grip the country, and it continued to sweep across the Southern Plains—western Kansas, eastern Colorado, New Mexico, and the panhandle regions of Texas and Oklahoma—until the late 1930s. In the early 1920s, farmers saw several opportunities for increasing their production. The Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms causing major ecological and agricultural damage to American prairie lands in the 1930's. Farming submarginal lands often had negative results, such as soil erosion and nutrient leaching. Although it technically refers to the western third of Kansas, southeastern Colorado, the Oklahoma Panhandle, the northern two-thirds of the Texas Panhandle, and northeastern New Mexico, the Dust Bowl has come to symbolize the hardships of the entire nation during the 1930s. At that time, little was known of the region’s climate. Problems remained, but these programs and activities would play a fundamental role in reducing the vulnerability of the nation to the forthcoming 1950s drought. Many days this spring the air is just full of dirt coming, literally, for hundreds of miles. Agribusiness is draining the Ogallala Aquifer, the United States' largest source of groundwater, which stretches from South Dakota to Texas and supplies about 30% of the nation's irrigation water. Some of the land use patterns and methods of cultivation in the region can be traced back to the settlement of the Great Plains nearly 100 years earlier. 93–123. Warrick et al. But despite their tragic consequences, none of these events come close to being the worst environmental disaster in the United States. This ecological and economic disaster and the region where it happened came to be known as the Dust Bowl. This expansion was also necessary to pay for expensive, newly developed equipment (such as listers and plows) that was often purchased on credit, and to offset low crop prices after World War I. Today, farmers use no till equipment, parts, and techniques to increase crop yields and protect the soil from another potential “dust bowl” catastrophe.. During the Great Depression, millions of unemployed men became “hobos,” homeless vagrants who wandered in search of work. The middle of the nation is in the midst of the first of four major drought episodes that would occur over the course of the next decade. 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. Men were taken off work programs to enter the armed forces and to produce for the war effort. Between 2013 and 2015, the aquifer lost 10.7 million acre-feet of storage. By using ThoughtCo, you accept our, Looking Ahead: Present and Future Dangers, The Story of the Great Depression in Photos, 1864 Sand Creek Massacre: History and Impact. This meant that conservation programs and research were significantly reduced during this period. And how did the Dust Bowl affect farmers? In these areas, there were many serious dust storms and droughts during the 1930s. A storm in May 1934 deposited 12 million tons of dust in Chicago and dropped layers of fine brown dust on the streets and parks of New York and Washington, D.C. The Dust Bowl is a term which was coined by a journalist during the “Dirty Thirties”. These newcomers were often in direct competition for jobs with longer-established residents, which created conflict between the groups. The region had been plowed from 1914 and 1920 to meet demand for wheat generated by World War I. Although cable news and the internet weren’t around to sensationalize the prolonged event, the Great Plains, and Southern Plains were devastated by the damage. A number of poor land management practices in the Great Plains region increased the vulnerability of the area before the 1930s drought. These events laid the groundwork for the severe soil erosion that would cause the Dust Bowl. 1966. The primary impact area of the Dust Bowl, as it came to be known, was on the Southern Plains. 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