The Dust Bowl

In the 1930s, the United States was plagued by the Dust Bowl, a dust storm that swept over the whole country. At the beginning of the 20th century, many new and inexperienced farmers moved to the great plains and started farms. They would plow up the land in order to plant wheat and corn. When the great depression hit, wheat prices went way down and farmers were forced to plow up more land to harvest more crops and break even.

In 1931, a drought began in the southern plains and without the deep rooted prarie grasses to keep the soil in place, the topsoil began to get blown around. This led to the Dust Bowl, a series of severe dust storms that darkened the sky and covered everything in a layer of grime.

These dust storms would get into homes through cracks in windows and doors, covering furniture and people in dust. Many people developed "dust pneumonia" after inhaling too much dirt, this included chest pain and difficulty breathing, many people died from this condition as well. Some of these dust storms carried topsoil all the way to Washington D.C. and New York. These dust storms also brought great amounts of static electricity, built up between the ground and the airborne dust. This surplus of static electricity could short out engines and car radios and knock people shaking hands to the ground. Overall, the dust bowl lasted about a decade, killed hundreds of people, and left thousands of people homeless.







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