What did farmers do to survive the Dust Bowl?

In some places, the dust drifted like snow, covering farm buildings and houses. Nineteen states in the heartland of the United States became a vast dust bowl. With no chance of making a living, farm families abandoned their homes and land, fleeing westward to become migrant laborers.

What did farmers do in response to the Dust Bowl?

As part of Roosevelt's New Deal, Congress established the Soil Erosion Service and the Prairie States Forestry Project in 1935. These programs put local farmers to work planting trees as windbreaks on farms across the Great Plains.

How did people survive the Dust Bowl?

People tried to protect themselves by hanging wet sheets in front of doorways and windows to filter the dirt. They stuffed window frames with gummed tape and rags.

What were farming practices during the Dust Bowl?

In the Plains especially, farmers removed millions of acres of native grassland, replacing it with excessive wheat, corn, and other crops. The surplus of crops caused prices to fall, which then pushed farmers to remove natural buffers between land and plant additional crop to make up for it.

What are two practices farmers learned to prevent future dust bowls?

Other helpful techniques include planting more drought-resistant strains of corn and wheat; leaving crop residue on the fields to cover the soil; and planting trees to break the wind. Reporting credit: ChavoBart Digital Media. Photo: Dust bowl photo from the 1930s (source: Wikipedia).

What People Ate to Survive During the Dust Bowl

Did anyone survive the Dust Bowl?

Most farm families did not flee the Dust Bowl.

Only 16,000 of the 1.2 million migrants to California during the 1930s came from the drought-stricken region. Most Dust Bowl refugees tended to move only to neighboring states.

How did people get water during the Dust Bowl?

Underground Water Irrigation.

Since the earliest settlement times, wells have been dug or drilled to provide water to humans, crops and livestock from under the ground. What early settlers found relatively close to the surface was a huge source of underground water.

How did families live during the Dust Bowl?

Families who lived far from town were isolated by piles of sand on roads that were far from modern in the first place. Farmers could not grow crops to feed their animals or gardens to feed their families because of the drought, blowing sand, and blistering heat. People began to leave Oklahoma.

Where did farmers end up when they left the Dust Bowl?

Driven by the depression, drought, and the Dust Bowl, thousands upon thousands left their homes in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri. Over 300,000 of them came to California. They looked to California as a land of promise.

How many farmers deal with the effects of the Dust Bowl?

Department of Agriculture records indicate that nearly two hundred out of every thousand farmers in the Midwest, Central South and Plains States lost their land to foreclosure between 1930-1935 [6].

Was the farmer responsible for the Dust Bowl?

Over-Plowing Contributes to the Dust Bowl or the 1930s. Each year, the process of farming begins with preparing the soil to be seeded. But for years, farmers had plowed the soil too fine, and they contributed to the creation of the Dust Bowl.

What famous route did farmers travel to escape the Dust Bowl regions?

The importance of Route 66 to emigrating "Dust Bowlers" during the Depression years received wide publicity. Less is known about the importance of the highway to those who opted to eke out a living in economically devastated Kansas, Oklahoma, West Texas, and New Mexico.

What did people have to do during the Dust Bowl?

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.

What was daily life like for people in the Dust Bowl?

Life during the Dust Bowl years was a challenge for those who remained on the Plains. They battled constantly to keep the dust out of their homes. Windows were taped and wet sheets hung to catch the dust. At the dinner table, cups, glasses, and plates were kept overturned until the meal was served.

What was it like to be a kid in the Dust Bowl?

Schools were overpopulated, underfunded, and an estimated 20,000 schools in America closed. Transportation was an issue—there were no buses or cars so children had to walk often long distances. Racism was so prevalent that many schools were segregated.

How was Dust Bowl solved?

Crop Subsidies Reward Farmers Who Rip Them Out. During the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, the federal government planted 220 million trees to stop the blowing soil that devastated the Great Plains.

Did people get sick during the Dust Bowl?

Physical Health

Physically, the Dust Bowl inflicted pain in the lungs. Victims suffered from dust pneumonia in the lungs, “a respiratory illness” that fills the alveoli with dust (Williford). People were scared of breathing because the air itself could kill them (PBS, 14:45).

How long did it not rain during the Dust Bowl?

In the 1930s, drought covered virtually the entire Plains for almost a decade (Warrick, 1980).

Why didn't it rain during the Dust Bowl?

More dust bowl images

These changes in sea surface temperatures created shifts in the large-scale weather patterns and low level winds that reduced the normal supply of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and inhibited rainfall throughout the Great Plains.

Who saved the Dust Bowl?

The Man Who Saved the Nation From One of the Worst Environmental Disasters in History. Hugh Bennett was critical in rescuing the United States from the Dust Bowl. Yet almost no one has ever heard of him. The Local newsletter is your free, daily guide to life in Colorado.

Could the Dust Bowl Been Prevented?

Unfortunately, the Dust Bowl could have been avoided if the settlers had recalled the dry history of the area, had used different farming methods, and had not overplowed and overgrazed the land.

Why couldn't farmers pay their bills in the 1930s?

Farmers who had borrowed money to expand during the boom couldn't pay their debts. As farms became less valuable, land prices fell, too, and farms were often worth less than their owners owed to the bank. Farmers across the country lost their farms as banks foreclosed on mortgages.

What were Dust Bowl refugees called?

Although the Dust Bowl included many Great Plains states, the migrants were generically known as "Okies," referring to the approximately 20 percent who were from Oklahoma.

Why were Okies hated?

Because they arrived impoverished and because wages were low, many lived in filth and squalor in tents and shantytowns along the irrigation ditches. Consequently, they were despised as "Okies," a term of disdain, even hate, pinned on economically degraded farm laborers no matter their state of origin.

How did Californians treat the Okies?

Predominantly upland southerners, the half-million Okies met new hardships in California, where they were unwelcome aliens, forced to live in squatter camps and to compete for scarce jobs as agricultural migrant laborers.