Teacher Development

The Dust Bowl

By Walter Eskridge

What Was The Dust Bowl?

The dust bowl was a term that was written April 15, 1935 by a

reporter for The Evening Star, a Washington D.C. newspaper. In that

article, Robert Geiger used

“the dust bowl” to refer to

powerful dust storms and to

the area where the dust

storms happened. The term

quickly caught on and it is

used to the present day to

refer to the drought and

dust storms of the 1930s.

The dust bowl lasted about

eleven years from 1930 to

1941. The map above shows where the dust bowl was. The Oklahoma

portion of the dust bowl was the panhandle and the northwest. Other parts

of the state were affected, but in those places, it was not as disastrous as it

was in the northwest. Farmers in the worst hit areas lost all of their soil and

were not able to raise a crop or feed or water their livestock.

What Caused The Dust Bowl?

Initially the causes of the dust bowl seem obvious: heat, wind and

drought. However the area had experienced these conditions before without

having devastating dust storms. What made the 1930s different?

1. In the area that became the dust bowl, the

protective layer of grass was plowed under

and destroyed. Prairie grass roots had held

down the soil for thousands of years through

periods of drought and high wind. When

they were destroyed, nothing remained to hold the soil.

2. Farmers often plowed parallel to the wind direction. That is, they

plowed in the same direction in which the wind blew. Then it was

easier for the wind to pick up the soil and blow it away.

3. Farmers planted crops that usually took nutrients out of the soil, so

each year there were fewer nutrients in the soil to support the

following year’s crop.

4. Drought made farm land into a desert because for eleven years, there

was very little rain or snow. Earlier droughts were probably shorter.

Damage Caused by the Dust Storms

Soil Damage

Dust storms, dusters, or boilers were

powerful and abrasive to the soil. A boiler

was essentially a sand blaster. Grains of

sand pushed by strong wind cut through

organic ground cover and carried the soil

away. In the picture to the right, the top

layer of fertile soil has been carried away.

All that remains are particles of loose sand and clay- very little to support

plants.

Psychological Damage

Imagine if you can the despair that a farm family must have felt when

they had their first look at their fields after a duster. Their livelihood had

been removed. In some cases, this included not only their cash crop but

also the kitchen garden where they raised the fruits and vegetables on which

they lived. If so, they had no income, nothing

from the garden to eat, and many of them had

payments to make for their use of the land.

Dusters were also a great threat to

livestock as their nostrils filled with dust; it was

difficult or impossible for them to breathe. After

a duster, children used brushes to clean the nostrils of their horses, cattle

and other livestock, so that they could breathe. There came a point where

there was no water to provide for the basic needs of cattle, horses, hogs,

and other farm animals. These animals had not only been a source of

income, but they were also a source of food for the farm family. Finally

many families shot their cattle rather than allow them to die a slow death

from thirst. The cattle had been a source of financial stability in their lives,

but then they were gone.

In March 1932, there were 22 days of dust storms. Imagine that dust

is in everything. When you wake in the morning, you are covered with it. It

is in your nose, your eyes, your teeth and hair. It gets into your food. It

comes through windows and doors that are closed

tightly. There is no place that dust cannot infiltrate.

All of these problems took a terrible toll on farm

families. There was less and less reason to hope that

things were going to improve. It was worse for

families who did not own their land because they

could be evicted for not keeping up the payments on

their homes and fields. Consequently, mental illness

and suicide became serious threats.

On April 14, 1935, also known as Black Sunday, many people sincerely

believed that the end of the world had arrived. They believed that it was the

end of everything and that they were about to die. Some did die.

Survival

Surviving a person’s first dust storm was proof

that it could be done. In spite of the darkness and the

fear, it was possible to survive. Also a common coping

technique was to say that every day that it does not rain

is one day closer to the day that it does rain. Provided

that the dusters did not kill you first, things would improve.

People used humor to survive. “Did you hear about the

birds flying backwards in a boiler so they wouldn’t get dust in

their eyes?” “Did you hear about the ground hog lifted up in a

duster digging frantically trying get to the ground?” There was

also the story about a man walking down the road when he

came to a huge mound of dust and dirt. Sitting atop the

mound was a man’s hat. The walker saw this and thought it peculiar for a

perfectly good hat to be sitting there. He stooped over and lifted the hat.

When he did, he saw that there was a head under the hat. The man under

the hat looked around and blinked. The first man asked, “Are you all right?”

The man who had been under the hat said, “Yes, I’m fine.” The first man

asked, “Can I get you something?” The other man replied, “No, I’m fine,

thank you.” “Well would you like for me to take you somewhere?” The first

man asked. The other replied, “No, I have a horse under me.”

There was also the joke about farmers who waited till the wind blew

back from the opposite direction so that the wind would return their soil

before they did their planting. There were the farmers who joked that they

had to pay taxes in Texas because that was where their farms had blown. It

got so hot that there were hens that laid hard boiled eggs. These examples

of humor helped a person to deal with hard times.

One way to survive those times was to keep ownership of one’s land.

Even though conditions were very bad, there was some comfort to be had

from knowing that your land was yours. One of the great challenges to

keeping ownership of land was that there was the property tax that had to

be paid each year, and taxes could only be paid with cash. When a farmer’s

cash crop was lost, cash was very difficult to come by. One could make a

little cash making 30¢ an hour shoveling sand drifts from the

highways. Even so, land owners had to be extremely frugal

with cash. They could barter and produce goods for their

daily needs in many cases, and this allowed them to conserve

their cash. When the land tax became due, they could pay it

and maintain their ownership for another year. This helped them feel that

they had some control over their lives.

Another survival strategy was to eat what was available. One food

that was abundant was jack rabbits which were used

to make a stew called hasenpfeffer. The rabbits were

a pest because they ate crops, but they were also

edible. Farm families rounded up the rabbits by

flushing them from their hiding places and then

driving them into a pen. Once they were caught, the

farmers killed the rabbits with clubs. They were not

very good to eat, but in a pinch, they were a meal.

Stop the Dust

One of the first things a person would see in the morning was a

reminder that the dust had been busy overnight. After getting up from bed,

a person could look back at his or her pillow and see where their head had

been. It would be the light colored space where dust had not settled.

Dust

People used a variety of strategies to diminish or stop dust invasion.

Closing the windows and doors is one. However the dust was made of such

tiny particles that with the pushing power of a sixty mile an hour wind, it

could still get into the house.

The problem with closing the windows is that the house would soon

get hot in the summer. In order to allow some air to flow through, the

family could tack wet sheets around the window frames.

When the dust hit the wet sheet, it would get trapped on the

sheet and not get into the house. That was true until the

sheet dried, and then the dust would flow right through.

One effective method to stop dust invasion was to melt a pot of

paraffin on the stove. Paraffin is candle wax. When it was melted, rags

were dipped into the paraffin. Before they could cool, they were stuffed into

door frames and around the window sashes. When the paraffin cooled, it

formed an effective seal against the dust. The problem was that someone

would eventually need to go outside. When a door was opened, the paraffin

seal around the door was broken such that the dust could fly in.

Some people tried to deal with the dust that was already in the house

by waving a wet sheet in the air in the hope that dust would cling to it as it

combed the air.

To keep dust out of food, the plates on which the family would eat

were kept face down on the dining table until they were ready to eat. At the

last moment, they turned the plates face up and served their food on them.

However sometimes the dust was so bad that the family simply skipped the

plates and ate straight out of the pan in which it was cooked.

In the picture above, notice the size of the coming dust cloud compared to the

buildings in the foreground. Notice how dark the boiler is. Would you be able to see

once the duster got to you? Would you be able to breathe? How would you feel?

Bizarre Experiences

The heat, drought, wind, and blowing dust provided unique conditions

that resulted in strange things happening. For example a man was reading

a newspaper on the sofa in his living room when suddenly the ceiling burst

open and a large pile of dust and dirt fell out of the attic. After he recovered

his composure and examined the situation, he saw that the vent openings in

the attic that open to the outside had provided a way that dust and dirt

could enter the attic and collect there as one boiler after another blew

through. Finally the weight of the dirt caused the ceiling to collapse.

During a duster, the flame from a lantern would be blue instead of

bright yellow or gold. The reason was that there was so much dust in the air

that the flame could not get enough oxygen to make it burn brightly.

A crow’s nest was discovered that was made entirely of bits of barbed

wire because those were the only materials available to the crow. A man

ran over his own mailbox with his automobile because a sand dune hid the

mailbox’s location. Tumbleweeds collected in a fence which filled with dust

and dirt. The tumbleweeds eventually caught the wind and acted as a sail

which pulled the fence posts out of the ground. Cattle were able to walk out

of fenced pastures because the sand dunes formed a heap over the fence,

and the cattle just walked out.

Driving in a dust storm was difficult because it was difficult for the

engine and the people to breathe. Also it was very difficult

to see the road. One way that drivers dealt with this was to

have someone lie on the right front fender and someone to

lie on the left front fender. The people who were on the

fenders were closer to the road and were able to see when

the car was about to go off of the road. If the car was too far to the left, the

person on the left fender might yell, “Go right!” After the driver made that

correction, the person on the other fender might yell, “Go left.” In so doing,

they were able to stay on the road.

As dust accumulates in the lungs, it causes dust pneumonia

which can cause the victim to become delirious and have

hallucinations. A man who was suffering from these

hallucinations saw rotating merry-go-round horses. One of the

horses was about to strike his mother, and the man said,

“Mamma, watch, one’s going to hit you in the head.” Some of the

treatments for dust pneumonia were rubbing skunk grease on the patient’s

chest. Another was to ingest coal oil or turpentine with some sugar. Still

another was to apply kerosene lard ointment onto the throat.

My mother told me of an incident in which her chickens thought it was

the end of the world. The chickens had gone from the egg to adulthood

without ever seeing rain. Then there came the rare day when it rained. The

chickens went mad. They were all running around frantically.

The family finally realized what was happening. Essentially, the

sky was falling, and the chickens had never experienced that

before. They did not know what was happening, so they gave

this turn of events their worst interpretation.

It was said that wind direction could be determined by the color of the

dust. If the wind was yellow, it was coming from New Mexico. If it was red,

it was coming from Colorado. If it was black, the wind was coming from

Kansas.

Daily Meals

Meals were usually prepared at home often on a kerosene stove. If a

family still had a cow, some chickens, and a hog, then milk, eggs,

cornbread, biscuits, beans and bacon were usually parts of a farm meal.

Families who did not have any livestock left could get bacon, butter, and

other food from a government relief program.

If they still had enough water to keep their kitchen garden green, they

might have tomatoes, potatoes, okra, peas and other things to prepare a

meal. All leftovers were saved for later meals.

On the rare occasion when a family would splurge on food, they could

go into town and get hamburgers for 5¢ each or a plate of fried chicken for

25¢. They could also go to a grocery store and buy a dozen eggs for 7¢, a

pound of beef roast for 8¢, two pounds of bacon for 25¢, or a dozen oranges

for 19¢.

Migration

Many farmers were sharecroppers. That means that they did not own

the land they farmed. When they harvested their crop, they paid for the use

of the land by giving the land owner a portion of their harvest. For a time,

this arrangement worked out well for everyone, but when the crops failed,

the system broke down. Land owners wanted to be paid, but sharecroppers

could not pay. In some cases, the owners had the sharecroppers’ houses

demolished to force them off the land. Then homeless sharecroppers had no

choice but to move on.

Rumors had reached the dust bowl region that there

were jobs and water in California. California was the land of

milk and honey where a person could start over and make a

new life. Thousands with their meager belongings began

the trek to the promise of California.

Author John Steinbeck wrote the novel The Grapes of

Wrath about the Joads, one Oklahoma family who made the journey to

California. In the novel, they experienced bitter disappointment. Upon

arriving in California, the “Okies” were unwanted, harassed, and treated as

unwelcome intruders. Some were so discouraged that they came back to

Oklahoma.

Lessons Learned

By 1941, the rain returned and the dust bowl ended, but farmers had

come to know that they had to change the way that they farmed. They had

learned that the old ways were not sustainable and that they had to take

care of the land. This was done several ways.

1. Soil has only so much nutrition in it, and nutrients have to be put back

into the soil to keep from exhausting it. This took the form of crop

rotation. Crops like clover, beans, peas, and alfalfa

put nutrients into the soil, so if a farmer raised one of

those crops every few years, the risk of depleting the

soil was reduced.

2. Farmers learned that they needed to plow perpendicular to the

prevailing wind direction. Before that, they had plowed parallel to the

wind direction. That had made it easier for the wind to pick up soil

and carry it away.

3. Farmers started planting wind breaks. These were lines of fast

growing trees that were aligned to be perpendicular to the prevailing

wind direction. Once the trees grew tall, they formed a living barrier

to the wind, and that helped to protect the soil.

4. In the past, farmers had always plowed their

fields. That is, they turned the soil over to a depth of

about ten inches each year. Gradually they moved

toward no till or minimal tillage. That means that

they did not plow their fields at all or plowed only to a

minimal depth. This was helpful because the more

soil was disturbed the more vulnerable it became to

wind erosion. Not only did they lessen their plowing,

but also stalks, leaves, chaff, and other crop residue was left to lie on

the field after harvest. This not only helped to protect the soil from

erosion, but it also allowed nutrients to blend with the soil as the

biomass decomposed.

5. Reservoirs, stock ponds, and other

forms of water detention were built

to make agriculture less vulnerable

to periodic droughts. In the 1930s

Pensacola Dam, the largest multiple

arch dam in the world, was built in

northeast Oklahoma. This dam and

others helped to provide a reserve

for agricultural and municipal water

as well as hydroelectric power generation.

A new crop coming up among residues from last season's harvest

Hard Decisions

Questions for Discussion

There were tough decisions that families had to make during the dust

bowl years. The following activity will help you understand this.

Here is your situation: you have 150 head of cattle, three horses,

three pigs, 12 chickens, a couple of goats, and

your family of five people. Your pond is dry,

your creek is also dry, and your well provides

only enough water for your family’s daily needs

plus enough to keep your kitchen garden. You

cannot provide water for all your cows, horses

and other livestock. You have to make a decision. What will you do?

Possible choices include:

Allow all of the animals to die of thirst

Water only some of the animals knowing

that the others will die

Slaughter the cows and pigs for their meat

and other products, but that raises the

question of what to do with all that meat.

Sell the livestock; however, most people in the area would also not be

able to water the livestock that they’ve already got.

Think of your own solution.

Dust Storm Simulation

1. With both hands, tightly cover your mouth and nose. Now breathe.

Do this until you notice that it is hard to breathe. During the dust

bowl, many people found it difficult to breathe because their mouth,

nose, throat, and lungs had dust in them. This activity should give

you some idea of how that would feel.

2. Do the following activities outside. As you do them, notice that there

are different results. These activities simulate conditions before and

during the dust bowl.

a. Get down close to a grassy area and blow. Try to blow the dirt

out from under the grass. How much dirt can you blow away?

b. Get some dry, loose dirt.

i. Using sticks or something similar, plow furrows into the

loose dirt. Then blow the dirt in the same direction that the

furrows go. Try to move the dirt with your blowing.

ii. Using sticks or something similar plow furrows through the

loose dirt. At a ninety degree angle, blow across the

furrows while trying to move the dirt.

c. With your palm facing you, place your hand in front of dry, loose

dirt and blow. Does the dirt behind your hand move?

Which dirt moves, and which dirt doesn’t?

d. Using the same or similar dirt as before, sprinkle the dirt with

water. Blow on it and try to move it.

Activity a. simulates conditions before the dust bowl.

Activity b. illustrates the different way of plowing farmers started to

reduce soil loss. Farmers were advised during the dust bowl to start

plowing their fields in a direction that goes across the wind direction

instead of in line with the wind. For instance, in the summer, the wind

usually blows from the south to north. To reduce soil loss, farmers

were advised to plow in an east west direction because it would be

harder for the wind to pick up their soil and blow it away.

Activity c. illustrates how wind blocks help reduce soil loss. Farmers

planted trees to create wind blocks.

In activity d. you see that it is harder to blow away moist soil

compared to soil that is loose and dry.