Dust Bowl

Dust storm approaching Stratford, Texas

During the Great Depression, in portions of the North American Great Plains there was a years-long drought, leading to soil erosion and dust storms usually referred to as the Dust Bowl. Crops failed, forcing many farmers to leave in search of work elsewhere, notably California. Many of the displaced were from Oklahoma, and became known as Okies.

In South Dakota on November 11, 1933 a very strong dust storm stripped topsoil from desiccated farmlands in just one of a series of disastrous dust storms that year. Then on May 11, 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 problems arising from the Dust Bowl led the U.S. Government to form the Soil Conservation Service, now the Natural Resources Conservation Service.

See also: Woody Guthrie, The Grapes of Wrath

Further reading

• USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service
• NASA Explains "Dust Bowl" Drought
• "On the Cause of the 1930s Dust Bowl" from Science magazine