Summary Of The Worst Hard Times By Timothy Egan

In the book, The Worst Hard Times, author Timothy Egan explains the hard times that the families in the high plains experienced during the years near the Great Depression. Egan writes about "The Great American Dust Bowl" which originally was a place of lushes thick grass where the bison could graze and where the Indians in the area could hunt, until Texas cowboys took over the land for big cattle drives making the area a huge ranch. During the years that these cowboys worked the land, they noticed that before they started the cattle runs, the grass that was in the area kept the top soil in place on times of drought. Now that the cattle had been grazing and the cowboys had been working the area, the grass was not prospering creating huge dust storms when the wind blew and there was no rain or plants to keep it down. The dust storms posed a worry to the ranch owners that they would lose cattle and therefore lose profit that they decided to divide up and sell the world's biggest cattle

These farmers tilled the land pulled up any remaining grass in the area only making the dust storms worse. During this time farming, there were a lot of struggles and difficulties for the families that were working the land. They had many hardships with the dust storms that was caused by fierce winds that would knock people and animals to the ground, making it impossible to breath and see causing the person to be lost as to which way they were headed and which way they came. In some instances the sandstorms go so bad it would even suffocate the animal or someones loved one. They also had difficulties with grasshoppers and rabbits that would add to crop failure and resulted in many losing so much money on the farms that some would quit and abandon their wheat