How Did Farmers Grow During The Great Depression

The 120,000 square-mile area the Dust Bowl destroyed was Kansas, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma and Colorado. The Dust Bowl was a name given to the Great Plains region that was struck with a drought in the 1930’s. Before the Depression, many of the farmers in the Great Plains were over producing wheat due to the war. Farmers plowed more land and removed grass in order to make more room for their crops. Then the Depression hit and the demand for wheat decreased.

Along with this, they brought traditional farming techniques. The technique called dry farming, designed for a very different, much more wet, climate, ruined the topsoil of the land. This caused crops to easily be uprooted in the winds of the plains. The use of dry farming (using only natural precipitation) caused the land to dry further from the lack of water due to crop growth. The topsoil, now loose, was easily picked up by wind, creating large waves of dust rushing towards homes and farms.

For almost 10 years, a drought ripped through the Midwest and affected families in a negative way. At the time of the Dust Bowl, the Great Depression was going on in America. In addition, President Herbert Hoover was not doing much to assist the farmers affected by the drought. FDR rolled along and put an end to all of this madness. During the “Dirty Thirties,” the Dust Bowl took place and affected farmers across the Midwest, resulting in less money and the collapse of business; however, the president enacted the New Deal which solved a lot of the problems.

The general consensus is that the great depression was caused by the stock market crash and the stock loses its value. Few days in October 1929 stock prices declines were first seen on October 3rd, 4th and 16th. On Wednesday October 16 1929 stock prices declined for the 3rd time that month. After the economic drops

The Black Death destroyed people but not the capital or resources available to have a fertile economy. As a result of a shortage of workers’ wages rose in agriculture immediately following the end of the plague and then slowly declined as the population rebounded (Martin, 2008). Contact with animals has been the cause of the worst contagious diseases that has affected humans in past societies. Resistant strains of plague, smallpox, influenza, and others were triggered by infections which first affected domestic animals. Various non-domestic species which also came in contact with humans such as mice, fleas or lice

They payed with produce such as “hickory nuts, turnip greens, and other goods.” The Great Depression had affected the Cunningham family badly. For example, “Entailment was only a part of Mr. Cunningham’s vexations. The acres not entailed were mortgaged to the hilt, and the little cash he made went to interest. If he held his mouth right, Mr. Cunningham would get a WPA job, but his land would go to ruin if he left it, and he was willing to go hungry to keep his land and vote as he pleased.”

This unusually wet period mistakenly led settlers to believe that the region 's climate had changed for the better. Farmers took notice that without the grass in place the fine soil easily eroded from heat. The persistent dry weather triggered failure for crops to grow because there wasn’t enough moisture necessary for seeds to sprout leading soil to dry up (History). If no seeds sprouted then the loose crumbled topsoil was impotent in fighting back against the bulk movement of air. Heat ways were then entitled to fry the what once was grassland into a fine-grained dust consistency, evidently leading to storms.

This led to banks being forced to close down and families losing their life savings The social impacts of the Wall Street crash were a nightmare for those who had no hand in its causes. Traders had a reduced amount of demand because no one wanted their goods, 18 000 farmers at the end of 1932 had lost everything and had gone bankrupt, this statistic also lines up with the fact that 1 in 20 farmers were evicted . Prices of houses plummeted by 80% of their original value There was a wide spread drought affecting areas such as Texas and Dakotas .

The Great Crash generally refers to the stock market crash (in America - Wall Street) on 29 October, 1929. It started on Thursday, 23 October when just before the 3:00 pm bell rang, the stock prices instantly fell. For the following week stocks fell lower and faster and changed hands so fast, the machines that kept track of these stocks seemed unable to cope up with the activity. All along while President Herbert Hoover reassured the people of America that the nation was “on a sound and prosperous basis”, more panic spread and because the uncertainty and risk was rising, people wanted their money back. In all this frenzy the United States Securities Regulation agencies could have shut down the market but they feared that would only spread more fear and could have led to a violent display of the emotions of the public.

Though there were some success regarding social equality, there was little to no economic growth and the lack of direction of the nation caused widespread starvation, which took the lives of millions. The Great Leap Forward was severely mismanaged and was the leading cause of The Great Chinese Famine. Mao created new standards for farming methods in an attempt to make it a more efficient process and bountiful. He called for the implementation of new and “improved” techniques such as crowding seeds in plots to grow more and planting seeds very deep under the ground to reach the more nutrient dense soil. These methods caused many failed harvests and a dire lack of food for the people living in the communes.

The prices of goods plummeted drastically, causing the farmers to expand and grow more crops, leading to the farmers being submerged in more debt than usual. Many of these families had traveled and lived in horrible conditions for many years looking for jobs. This famous Great Depression picture is called the Toll of Uncertainty. This woman and her family were pea pickers in California.