Dust Bowl Dbq Essay

Darkness at noon, plagues of dirt and dust battering you in your home. When you wake up, fine dust cakes everything you own. This was the reality for so many in the Great Plains region of the United States during the Dust Bowl. In the 1930s, the Dust Bowl was extensively immense and overbearing for many. Resulting in a decade of bitter darkness at midday, a surplus of casualties in both livestock and humans, and the destruction of agricultural systems, the Dust Bowl caused extensive damage and hardship in a time of ongoing uncertainty and despair. The direct and indirect causes of this event are unfathomable, yet it was a harsh reality for families and individuals who had lived in this region since the near beginning of Westward Expansion.

One major example of this is found in Document A, which depicts three first hand accounts and select community discussions to these majorly impactful dust storms. While this document displays the response of individuals after these storms had begun, it also displayed a lack of action and preventive measures. This examines this lack of action by stating how, “On 15 March, Denver reported that a serious dust storm was speeding eastward. Kansans ignored the radio warnings, went about their business as usual, and later wondered what had hit them” (A). This excerpt displays ways in which community members were readily able to ignore the events of the Dust Bowl. Due to this lack of acknowledgement from the community, it can be inferred that responses or other measures were not highly considered, only issuing forth new and stronger problems through this era. Another document demonstrating this is Document C, which examines how individuals had no plan for recultivating and supporting the land which was tilled to fill their crops. This document describes ways in which new technologies advanced the speed in which land was cultivated, but does not describe agricultural methods to maintain it. This is revealed through how “Folkers plowed nearly his entire square mile, and then paid to rent nearby property and ripped up that grass as well” (C). This uncovers the fact that farmers during the timer period surrounding the Dust Bowl were plowing land at rapid speeds without taking proper precautions into consideration. This large swath of once fertile land was rapidly stripped of its grasses, and many farmers at the time did not give the land time to heal before harvests, decimating the topsoil and revealing the dirt which would create the dust storms so prominent in this era. One personal account from this period of time is brought to light through Document B, which supports the