Analysis Of The Black Blizzard From Scholastic Scope

Among the events that have had a drastic shaping on human events throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are natural disasters. Often times, a natural disaster will leave residents of affected areas in a state of awe as they seek to understand what exactly happened. One such example is Hurricane Hugo.

Ever heard of the Dust Bowl? “The Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms that really damaged the agriculture of the US and during the 1930s. The Dust Bowl was a severe drought that has started to ruin the agriculture. When this happened the states including Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico were affected.” ( John Steinbeck ). This act made many people who owned farms unemployed and they lost their farms and also there houses. When their farms got ruined they knew that they continue their life there. So many of them migrated to California.“By 1940, 2.5 million people had moved out of the Dust Bowl states and started to head toward the states by the Pacific” (John Steinbeck). I believe that California was a place that would attract unemployed farm workers from the Dust Bowl states because they could start a new life there it also is a easy way to find farm jobs because of its agriculture, climate, and the easiness of getting water.

Can the fear of the unknown hold us back from excelling in life? In The Storm by MckNight Malmar, the story focuses on how fear seems to rule a young woman’s life; leading her away from happiness. From the beginning of the story, Janet experiences an almost inane outlook on the world- she’s terrified of the smallest things. This child-like manner corresponds with how she views herself, “She did not really see the pale face with its blunt nose, the slender, almost childish figure in it’s grown-up black dress, or the big brown eyes that looked back at her...There was something childlike about her, like a small girl craving protection, something immature and yet appealing” (Malmar 1). The mindset she’s set herself into creates her need for a

book was that he could relate to the feelings of being hit hard with a

Not all of America responded kindly to FSA’s photos and documentaries, or to the New Deal for that matter. Many claimed photographers and filmmakers along with Eastern bureaucrats sensationalized and “exaggerated the damage of the Dust Bowl, had vilified an entire region in order to score political points for the Roosevelt administration” (Dunaway, 2005, pp. 54-55). Though many alleged FSA photos were politically driven, Stryker held steadfast to his ideals and denied they served as government propaganda (Gordon, 2006; Brennen & Hardt, 1999; Stange, 1989). Some have argued the photos themselves were not propaganda, but became propaganda because of how they pushed a specific ideology on the public. Carlebach explains:

David Laskin’s The Children’s Blizzard explains the devastating force of an intense blizzard, which caught several people unprepared, and it tells the tragic stories of these people. On January 12, 1888 a massive blizzard struck the center of North America, killing between 250 to 500 people and affecting thousands. There were many factors that made this blizzard exceptionally deadly. Many farmers and children who were outside were unprepared to deal with any cold conditions, “a day when children had raced to school with no coats or gloves and farmers were far from home doing chores they had put off during the long siege of cold” (Laskin 2). The reason for this is because they had no idea the blizzard was coming. In this time the weather forecasts

The blizzard on January 12, 1888 will forever be known as one of the most disastrous storms in history. The storm earned the name “the children’s blizzard” because so many children lives were taken in this malicious storm. Could something have been done to prevent such a large death toll? Yes. If the proper steps had been taken to warn the people of the approaching bad weather, then many could have taken the necessary precautions to ensure the safety of their family and livestock.

There’s a huge cloud coming only it 's not a cloud made of water, it 's a cloud of dust.

The Dust Bowl was a hard time during the great depression. The Dust Bowl negatively affected people in a personal way. The dust was hard to keep away. People fled and left everything. The drought made things worst and the environment was horrible to live in. People couldn’t even touch each other without getting shocked.

In The Worst Hard Time, the author explains how new technology led to overproduction of many crops. A tractor was able to do the work of ten horses and a combine was able to thresh grain in one swoop. A farmer’s harvest could even go up by the thousands. As the farmers made more money they bought nearby land and ripped the grass out to make more space for more crops (Doc. C). With the overproduction of land came bare fields. Without grass to hold the soil down, wind could easily pick up the soil and create a dust storm. In the chart by the Great Plains Drought Area Committee Report of August 27, 1963, it shows the average amount of crops harvested in eight Great Plains states. In 1888 only 50 million acres were harvested. Then in 1929, before the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, 150 acres were harvested (Doc. D). Since there was so much more wheat being produced at this time more land was being used and more grass was being taken away and more storms could occur.

The leading historian of the Dust Bowl, Donald Worster, described it in the following way: “In no other instance was there greater or more sustained damage to the American land, and there have been few times when so much tragedy was visited on its inhabitants. Not even the Depression was more devastating, economically” [2].

When you think of a blizzard, you usually don’t think of tragic 40 below zero temperatures. You don’t always imagine extremely high winds blowing the snow every which way, making it very difficult to see what’s in front of you. You certainly don’t think of a blizzard to kill 235 people, including 213 children just trying to make it home from school. The Children’s Blizzard of 1888 included many details common to blizzards, had incredible devastation due to the welcoming conditions beforehand, and involved some very surprising circumstances.

It happened in Galveston, Texas. There was a very small chance to survive, if you stayed in Galveston. It destroyed just about everything and everybody that was there. In the very first chapter of the book it illustrates the events and emotions that happened on the day the storm had hit. The main character of the book was Isaac Monroe Cline. Who at the time was the Chief Meteorologist for the U.S. Weather Bureau in Galveston, Texas. On the day the storm was coming, he knew something was just not quite right and he wanted to find out what it was. “Waking to a persistent sense of something gone wrong”(3). This chapter tells a lot about the people who lived, and the ascending population and goods that are coming to Galveston. In the first part of the book, he talks about the weather conditions in Africa on how it was causing the temperature in the United States to be overwhelmingly hot. And how these temperatures can cause hurricanes. The novel discusses on just how Mr. Cline became so interested in weather. “His greatest dream was to write a scientific treatise on something, anything”(29). He had studied past weather conditions, so he would be able to predict future forecast more accurately. So he knew that writing about weather could possibly help him achieve his goal for writing a treatise. Cline was working with the

People caused the dust bowl for the many reasons and has been one of the worst disasters happened. I chose option e, because people actions caused the dust bowl. People caused the dust bowl because of all the prairie grass they had ripped up, also because they had a major drought. The gigantic land and great soil had brought many people causing them to make more land and tear up more soil.

The dust bowl was a very dangerous and tragic event due to the drought that