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Map of states and counties affected by the Dust Bowl between 1935 and 1938 originally prepared by the Soil Conservation Service. The most severely affected counties during this period are colored .
A farmer and his two sons during a dust storm in Cimarron County, Oklahoma, April 1936. Iconic photo taken by Arthur Rothstein.
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. The drought came in three waves, 1934, 1936, and 1939–1940, but some regions of the High Plains experienced drought conditions for as many as eight years.
With insufficient understanding of the ecology of the plains, farmers had conducted extensive deep plowing of the virgin topsoil of the Great Plains during the previous decade; this had displaced the native, deep-rooted grasses that normally trapped soil and moisture even during periods of drought and high winds. The rapid mechanization of farm equipment, especially small gasoline tractors, and widespread use of the combine harvester
contributed to farmers' decisions to convert arid grassland (much of
which received no more than 10 inches (~250 mm) of precipitation per
year) to cultivated cropland. During the drought of the 1930s, the unanchored soil turned to dust,
which the prevailing winds blew away in huge clouds that sometimes
blackened the sky. These choking billows of dust – named "black
blizzards" or "black rollers" – traveled cross country, reaching as far
as the East Coast and striking such cities as New York City and Washington, D.C. On the plains, they often reduced visibility to 3 feet (1 m) or less. Associated Press reporter Robert E. Geiger happened to be in Boise City, Oklahoma, to witness the "Black Sunday"
black blizzards of April 14, 1935; Edward Stanley, the Kansas City news
editor of the Associated Press, coined the term "Dust Bowl" while
rewriting Geiger's news story.
While the term "the Dust Bowl" was originally a reference to the
geographical area affected by the dust, today it usually refers to the
event itself (the term "Dirty Thirties" is also sometimes used). The
drought and erosion of the Dust Bowl affected 100,000,000 acres
(400,000 km2) that centered on the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma and touched adjacent sections of New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas.
The Dust Bowl forced tens of thousands of poverty-stricken families to
abandon their farms, unable to pay mortgages or grow crops, and losses
reached $25 million per day by 1936 (equivalent to $460,000,000 in
2019). Many of these families, who were often known as "Okies" because so many of them came from Oklahoma, migrated to California and other states to find that the Great Depression had rendered economic conditions there little better than those they had left.
The Dust Bowl has been the subject of many cultural works, notably the novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939) by John Steinbeck, the folk music of Woody Guthrie, and photographs depicting the conditions of migrants by Dorothea Lange.
Geographic characteristics and early history
A dust storm approaches Stratford, Texas, in 1935.
The Dust Bowl area lies principally west of the 100th meridian on the High Plains, characterized by plains which vary from rolling in the north to flat in the Llano Estacado. Elevation ranges from 2,500 feet (760 m) in the east to 6,000 feet (1,800 m) at the base of the Rocky Mountains. The area is semiarid, receiving less than 20 inches (510 mm) of rain annually; this rainfall supports the shortgrass prairie
biome originally present in the area. The region is also prone to
extended drought, alternating with unusual wetness of equivalent
duration.
During wet years, the rich soil provides bountiful agricultural output,
but crops fail during dry years. The region is also subject to high
winds.
During early European and American exploration of the Great Plains, this region was thought unsuitable for European-style agriculture; explorers called it the Great American Desert. The lack of surface water and timber made the region less attractive than other areas for pioneer settlement and agriculture.
The federal government encouraged settlement and development of the Plains for agriculture via the Homestead Act of 1862, offering settlers 160-acre (65 ha) plots. With the end of the Civil War in 1865 and the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad
in 1869, waves of new migrants and immigrants reached the Great Plains,
and they greatly increased the acreage under cultivation. An unusually wet period in the Great Plains mistakenly led settlers and the federal government to believe that "rain follows the plow" (a popular phrase among real estate promoters) and that the climate of the region had changed permanently. While initial agricultural endeavors were primarily cattle ranching, the adverse effect of harsh winters on the cattle, beginning in 1886, a short drought in 1890, and general overgrazing, led many landowners to increase the amount of land under cultivation.
Recognizing the challenge of cultivating marginal arid land, the
United States government expanded on the 160 acres (65 ha) offered under
the Homestead Act – granting 640 acres (260 ha) to homesteaders in
western Nebraska under the Kinkaid Act (1904) and 320 acres (130 ha) elsewhere in the Great Plains under the Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909.
Waves of European settlers arrived in the plains at the beginning of
the 20th century. A return of unusually wet weather seemingly confirmed
a previously held opinion that the "formerly" semiarid area could
support large-scale agriculture. At the same time, technological
improvements such as mechanized plowing and mechanized harvesting made
it possible to operate larger properties without increasing labor costs.
The combined effects of the disruption of the Russian Revolution, which decreased the supply of wheat and other commodity crops, and World War I increased agricultural prices; this demand encouraged farmers to dramatically increase cultivation. For example, in the Llano Estacado of eastern New Mexico and northwestern Texas, the area of farmland was doubled between 1900 and 1920, then tripled again between 1925 and 1930. The agricultural methods favored by farmers during this period created the conditions for large-scale erosion under certain environmental conditions.
The widespread conversion of the land by deep plowing and other soil
preparation methods to enable agriculture eliminated the native grasses
which held the soil in place and helped retain moisture during dry
periods. Furthermore, cotton farmers left fields bare during winter months, when winds in the High Plains are highest, and burned the stubble as a means to control weeds prior to planting, thereby depriving the soil of organic nutrients and surface vegetation.
Drought and dust storms
Heavy black clouds of dust rising over the Texas Panhandle, Texas, c. 1936
After fairly favorable climatic conditions in the 1920s with good rainfall and relatively moderate winters,
which permitted increased settlement and cultivation in the Great
Plains, the region entered an unusually dry era in the summer of 1930.
During the next decade, the northern plains suffered four of their
seven driest calendar years since 1895, Kansas four of its twelve
driest, and the entire region south to West Texas lacked any period of above-normal rainfall until record rains hit in 1941. When severe drought
struck the Great Plains region in the 1930s, it resulted in erosion and
loss of topsoil because of farming practices at the time. The drought
dried the topsoil and over time it became friable, reduced to a powdery
consistency in some places. Without the indigenous grasses in place, the
high winds that occur on the plains picked up the topsoil and created
the massive dust storms that marked the Dust Bowl period.
The persistent dry weather caused crops to fail, leaving the plowed
fields exposed to wind erosion. The fine soil of the Great Plains was
easily eroded and carried east by strong continental winds.
On November 11, 1933, a very strong dust storm stripped topsoil from desiccated South Dakota
farmlands in just one of a series of severe dust storms that year.
Beginning on May 9, 1934, a strong, two-day dust storm removed massive
amounts of Great Plains topsoil in one of the worst such storms of the Dust Bowl. The dust clouds blew all the way to Chicago, where they deposited 12 million pounds of dust (~ 5500 tonnes). Two days later, the same storm reached cities to the east, such as Cleveland, Buffalo, Boston, New York City, and Washington, D.C. That winter (1934–1935), red snow fell on New England.
On April 14, 1935, known as "Black Sunday",
20 of the worst "black blizzards" occurred across the entire sweep of
the Great Plains, from Canada south to Texas. The dust storms caused
extensive damage and appeared to turn the day to night; witnesses
reported that they could not see five feet in front of them at certain
points. Denver-based Associated Press reporter Robert E. Geiger happened to be in Boise City, Oklahoma, that day. His story about Black Sunday marked the first appearance of the term Dust Bowl; it was coined by Edward Stanley, Kansas City news editor of the Associated Press, while rewriting Geiger's news story.
Spearman and Hansford County have been literaly [sic] in a cloud of dust for the past week. Ever since Friday of last week, there hasn't been a day pass but what the county was beseieged [sic] with a blast of wind and dirt. On rare occasions when the wind did subside for a period of hours, the air has been so filled with dust that the town appeared to be overhung by a fog cloud. Because of this long seige of dust and every building being filled with it, the air has become stifling to breathe and many people have developed sore throats and dust colds as a result.
— Spearman Reporter, March 21, 1935
Much of the farmland was eroded in the aftermath of the Dust Bowl. In
1941, a Kansas agricultural experiment station released a bulletin that
suggested reestablishing native grasses by the "hay method". Developed
in 1937 to speed up the process and increase returns from pasture, the
"hay method" was originally supposed to occur in Kansas naturally over
25–40 years.
After much data analysis, the causal mechanism for the droughts can be
linked to ocean temperature anomalies. Specifically, Atlantic Ocean sea
surface temperatures appear to have had an indirect effect on the
general atmospheric circulation, while Pacific sea surface temperatures
seem to have had the most direct influence.
Human displacement
This catastrophe intensified the economic impact of the Great Depression in the region.
United States
Buried machinery in a barn lot; Dallas, South Dakota, May 1936
In 1935, many families were forced to leave their farms and travel to
other areas seeking work because of the drought (which at that time had
already lasted four years). The abandonment of homesteads and financial ruin resulting from catastrophic topsoil loss led to widespread hunger and poverty. Dust Bowl conditions fomented an exodus of the displaced from Texas, Oklahoma,
and the surrounding Great Plains to adjacent regions. More than 500,000
Americans were left homeless. More than 350 houses had to be torn down
after one storm alone.
The severe drought and dust storms had left many homeless; others had
their mortgages foreclosed by banks, or felt they had no choice but to
abandon their farms in search of work. Many Americans migrated west looking for work. Parents packed up "jalopies" with their families and a few personal belongings, and headed west in search of work. Some residents of the Plains, especially in Kansas and Oklahoma, fell ill and died of dust pneumonia or malnutrition.
"Broke, baby sick, and car trouble!" – Dorothea Lange's 1937 photo of a Missouri migrant family's jalopy stuck near Tracy, California.
The Dust Bowl exodus was the largest migration in American history
within a short period of time. Between 1930 and 1940, approximately
3.5 million people moved out of the Plains states; of those, it is
unknown how many moved to California.
In just over a year, over 86,000 people migrated to California. This
number is more than the number of migrants to that area during the 1849
Gold Rush. Migrants abandoned farms in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, Colorado, and New Mexico, but were often generally referred to as "Okies", "Arkies", or "Texies".
Terms such as "Okies" and "Arkies" came to be known in the 1930s as the
standard terms for those who had lost everything and were struggling
the most during the Great Depression.
Not all migrants traveled long distances; some simply went to the
next town or county. So many families left their farms and were on the
move that the proportion between migrants and residents was nearly equal
in the Great Plains states.
Characteristics of migrants
A migratory family from Texas living in a trailer in an Arizona cotton field
Historian James N. Gregory examined Census Bureau
statistics and other records to learn more about the migrants. Based on
a 1939 survey of occupation by the Bureau of Agricultural Economics of
about 116,000 families who arrived in California in the 1930s, he
learned that only 43 percent of southwesterners were doing farm work
immediately before they migrated. Nearly one-third of all migrants were
professional or white-collar workers.
The poor economy displaced more than just farmers as refugees to
California; many teachers, lawyers, and small business owners moved west
with their families during this time. After the Great Depression
ended, some moved back to their original states. Many others remained
where they had resettled. About one-eighth of California's population is
of Okie heritage.
U.S. government response
The greatly expanded participation of government in land management
and soil conservation was an important outcome from the disaster.
Different groups took many different approaches to responding to the
disaster. To identify areas that needed attention, groups such as the Soil Conservation Service
generated detailed soil maps and took photos of the land from the sky.
To create shelterbelts to reduce soil erosion, groups such as the United States Forestry Service's
Prairie States Forestry Project planted trees on private lands.
Finally, groups like the Resettlement Administration, which later became
the Farm Security Administration, encouraged small farm owners to resettle on other lands, if they lived in drier parts of the Plains.
During President Franklin D. Roosevelt's first 100 days in office in 1933, his administration quickly initiated programs to conserve soil and restore the ecological balance of the nation. Interior Secretary Harold L. Ickes established the Soil Erosion Service in August 1933 under Hugh Hammond Bennett. In 1935, it was transferred and reorganized under the Department of Agriculture and renamed the Soil Conservation Service. It is now known as the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS).
As part of New Deal programs, Congress passed the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act
in 1936, requiring landowners to share the allocated government
subsidies with the laborers who worked on their farms. Under the law,
"benefit payments were continued as measures for production control and
income support, but they were now financed by direct Congressional
appropriations and justified as soil conservation measures. The Act
shifted the parity goal from price equality of agricultural commodities
and the articles that farmers buy to income equality of farm and
non-farm population."
Thus, the parity goal was to re-create the ratio between the purchasing
power of the net income per person on farms from agriculture and that
of the income of persons not on farms that prevailed during 1909–1914.
To stabilize prices, the government paid farmers and ordered more
than six million pigs to be slaughtered. It paid to have the meat
packed and distributed to the poor and hungry. The Federal Surplus Relief Corporation (FSRC) was established to regulate crop and other surpluses. FDR in an address on the AAA commented,
Let me make one other point clear for the benefit of the millions in cities who have to buy meats. Last year the Nation suffered a drought of unparalleled intensity. If there had been no Government program, if the old order had obtained in 1933 and 1934, that drought on the cattle ranges of America and in the corn belt would have resulted in the marketing of thin cattle, immature hogs and the death of these animals on the range and on the farm, and if the old order had been in effect those years, we would have had a vastly greater shortage than we face today. Our program – we can prove it – saved the lives of millions of head of livestock. They are still on the range, and other millions of heads are today canned and ready for this country to eat.
The FSRC diverted agricultural commodities to relief organizations.
Apples, beans, canned beef, flour and pork products were distributed
through local relief channels. Cotton goods were later included, to
clothe the needy.
In 1935, the federal government formed a Drought Relief Service
(DRS) to coordinate relief activities. The DRS bought cattle in
counties which were designated emergency areas, for $14 to $20 a head.
Animals determined unfit for human consumption were killed; at the
beginning of the program, more than 50 percent were so designated in
emergency areas. The DRS assigned the remaining cattle to the Federal
Surplus Relief Corporation (FSRC) to be used in food distribution to
families nationwide. Although it was difficult for farmers to give up
their herds, the cattle slaughter program helped many of them avoid
bankruptcy. "The government cattle buying program was a blessing to many
farmers, as they could not afford to keep their cattle, and the
government paid a better price than they could obtain in local markets."
President Roosevelt ordered the Civilian Conservation Corps to plant the Great Plains Shelterbelt, a huge belt of more than 200 million trees from Canada to Abilene, Texas
to break the wind, hold water in the soil, and hold the soil itself in
place. The administration also began to educate farmers on soil conservation and anti-erosion techniques, including crop rotation, strip farming, contour plowing, terracing, and other improved farming practices.
In 1937, the federal government began an aggressive campaign to
encourage farmers in the Dust Bowl to adopt planting and plowing methods
that conserved the soil. The government paid reluctant farmers a
dollar an acre to practice the new methods. By 1938, the massive
conservation effort had reduced the amount of blowing soil by 65%.
The land still failed to yield a decent living. In the fall of 1939,
after nearly a decade of dirt and dust, the drought ended when regular
rainfall finally returned to the region. The government still encouraged
continuing the use of conservation methods to protect the soil and
ecology of the Plains.
At the end of the drought, the programs which were implemented
during these tough times helped to sustain a positive relationship
between America's farmers and the federal government.
The President's Drought Committee issued a report in 1935
covering the government's assistance to agriculture during 1934 through
mid-1935: it discussed conditions, measures of relief, organization,
finances, operations, and results of the government's assistance. Numerous exhibits are included in this report.
Long-term economic impact
In many regions, more than 75% of the topsoil was blown away by the end of the 1930s. Land degradation
varied widely. Aside from the short-term economic consequences caused
by erosion, there were severe long-term economic consequences caused by
the Dust Bowl.
By 1940, counties that had experienced the most significant
levels of erosion had a greater decline in agricultural land values. The
per-acre value of farmland declined by 28% in high-erosion counties and
17% in medium-erosion counties, relative to land value changes in
low-erosion counties.
Even over the long-term, the agricultural value of the land often
failed to recover to pre-Dust Bowl levels. In highly eroded areas, less
than 25% of the original agricultural losses were recovered. The
economy adjusted predominantly through large relative population
declines in more-eroded counties, both during the 1930s and through the
1950s.
The economic effects persisted, in part, because of farmers'
failure to switch to more appropriate crops for highly eroded areas.
Because the amount of topsoil had been reduced, it would have been more
productive to shift from crops and wheat to animals and hay. During the
Depression and through at least the 1950s, there was limited relative
adjustment of farmland away from activities that became less productive
in more-eroded counties.
Some of the failure to shift to more productive agricultural
products may be related to ignorance about the benefits of changing land
use. A second explanation is a lack of availability of credit, caused
by the high rate of failure of banks in the Plains states. Because
banks failed in the Dust Bowl region at a higher rate than elsewhere,
farmers could not get the credit they needed to buy capital to shift
crop production.
In addition, profit margins in either animals or hay were still
minimal, and farmers had little incentive in the beginning to change
their crops.
Patrick Allitt recounts how fellow historian Donald Worster responded to his return visit to the Dust Bowl in the mid-1970s when he revisited some of the worst afflicted counties:
- Capital-intensive agribusiness had transformed the scene; deep wells into the aquifer, intensive irrigation, the use of artificial pesticides and fertilizers, and giant harvesters were creating immense crops year after year whether it rained or not. According to the farmers he interviewed, technology had provided the perfect answer to old troubles, such of the bad days would not return. In Worster's view, by contrast, the scene demonstrated that America's capitalist high-tech farmers had learned nothing. They were continuing to work in an unsustainable way, devoting far cheaper subsidized energy to growing food than the energy could give back to its ultimate consumers.
In contrast with Worster's pessimism, historian Mathew Bonnifield
argued that the long-term significance of the Dust Bowl was "the triumph
of the human spirit in its capacity to endure and overcome hardships
and reverses."
Influence on the arts and culture
Florence Owens Thompson seen in the photo Destitute Pea Pickers in California. Mother of Seven Children. by Dorothea Lange
"Dust bowl farmers of west Texas in town," photograph by Dorothea Lange, June 1937.
The crisis was documented by photographers, musicians, and authors,
many hired during the Great Depression by the federal government. For
instance, the Farm Security Administration hired numerous photographers to document the crisis. Artists such as Dorothea Lange were aided by having salaried work during the Depression.
She captured what have become classic images of the dust storms and
migrant families. Among her most well-known photographs is Destitute Pea Pickers in California. Mother of Seven Children, which depicted a gaunt-looking woman, Florence Owens Thompson,
holding three of her children. This picture expressed the struggles of
people caught by the Dust Bowl and raised awareness in other parts of
the country of its reach and human cost. Decades later, Thompson
disliked the boundless circulation of the photo and resented the fact
she did not receive any money from its broadcast. Thompson felt it gave
her the perception as a Dust Bowl "Okie."
The work of independent artists was also influenced by the crises of the Dust Bowl and the Depression. Author John Steinbeck, borrowing closely from field notes taken by Farm Security Administration worker and author Sanora Babb, wrote The Grapes of Wrath
(1939) about migrant workers and farm families displaced by the Dust
Bowl. Babb's own novel about the lives of the migrant workers, Whose Names Are Unknown,
was written in 1939 but was eclipsed and shelved in response to the
success of Steinbeck's work, and was finally published in 2004. Many of the songs of folk singer Woody Guthrie, such as those on his 1940 album Dust Bowl Ballads,
are about his experiences in the Dust Bowl era during the Great
Depression when he traveled with displaced farmers from Oklahoma to
California and learned their traditional folk and blues songs, earning
him the nickname the "Dust Bowl Troubadour".
Migrants also influenced musical culture wherever they went.
Oklahoma migrants, in particular, were rural Southwesterners who carried
their traditional country music to California. Today, the "Bakersfield Sound"
describes this blend, which developed after the migrants brought
country music to the city. Their new music inspired a proliferation of
country dance halls as far south as Los Angeles.
The 2014 science fiction film Interstellar
features a ravaged 21st-century America which is again scoured by dust
storms (caused by a worldwide pathogen affecting all crops). Along with
inspiration from the 1930s crisis, director Christopher Nolan features interviews from the 2012 documentary The Dust Bowl to draw further parallels.
In 2017, Americana recording artist Grant Maloy Smith released the album Dust Bowl – American Stories, which was inspired by the history of the Dust Bowl. In a review, the music magazine No Depression wrote that the album's lyrics and music are "as potent as Woody Guthrie, as intense as John Trudell and dusted with the trials and tribulations of Tom Joad – Steinbeck and The Grapes of Wrath."
Aggregate changes in agriculture and population on the Plains
The change in the total value of agricultural land and revenue was
quite similar over the twentieth century. Agricultural land and revenue
boomed during World War I, but fell during the Great Depression and the
1930s. The land and revenue began increasing again in 1940, and has been
increasing since then. From 1910 to the 1940s, total farmland increased
and remained constant until 1970 when it slightly declined. During
this time, total population increased steadily, but there was a slight
dip in trend from 1930 to 1960.
