The Dust Bowl

Dust Bowl, The Southern Plains in the 30’s written by Donald Worster and published in 1979, is an informative text on the Great Plains during the Great Depression. Donald Worster is a credible author because he not only earned a Ph.D. from Yale in environmental history, but he also had previously written a book on the environment and the economy.

Ever-smelled destruction, and seen destruction? Well some people have. They saw families, die and move away. Better, close and cover the windows and doors here comes the dust. This destruction was the dust bowl of the 1930’s. The dust bowl was a man-made and natural disaster that devastated America and messed with millions of lives.

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.

In the article, "Desperation at sea" by Rebecca Zissou discusses how refugee 's are having to flee their homes because of war. First, the refugee 's are all going from Syria, Gambia, Somalia, Eritrea, and Sudan to Libya because of war, disease, poverty, etc. Also they have to cross the harsh heat and terrain of the Sahara desert just to get to Libya. After that, the refugee 's have to pay people to get them over to Europe for safety but they could get a very bad deal from sometimes very untrustworthy people. In addition, the so called smugglers might abandon them on the boat with little to no food, water, fuel, and in most conditions the refugee 's don 't know their way to Europe. Throughout the time that they are on the boats they become

The winds were growing stronger. The sun was shining brighter. It had not rained for many days and the soil was dry. Then the winds whipped up the dust and soil. The wind blew everywhere and so did the dust. The air was filled with dust and dirt. Many mammals died from swallowing and breathing too much dust and dirt. It was during the Great Depression so animals were valued. Animals gave them money from their milk and meat. The Dust Bowl lasted a terrible ten years that changed many people's lives.

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. Farmers did not need as much land as before so they left a majority of it unoccupied and bare. Since there was no grass to hold all the dirt down, when winds would pick up the loose dirt it would create dense dust clouds, that were also known as “black blizzards”. These storms ruined

he early 20th century was a period of social change and urbanization which followed by the Great Depression. The dust become a way of life. A dust bowl survivor described what daily life was like during the dust bowl: “ In the morning the dust hung like fog, and the sun was as red as ripe new blood. All day the dust sifted down from the sky, and the next day it sifted down. An even blanket covered the earth. It settled on the corn, piled up on the tops of the fence posts, piled up on the wires; it settled on roofs, blanketed the weeds and trees” [2]. Strong wind blowed all the time. The sky was cloudy and dusty. The sun hides between the thick layers of dust. Dust blown everywhere and covered everything including houses. Layer of dust piled

Timothy Egan wrote this book to describe a hard time during the Dust Bowl. He described how the Dust Bowl affected the farmers and effected on the life at all. The Dust Bowl occurred during the time of economic depression. He focused on untold stories about people live in the Dust Bowl.

The Dust Bowl was a terrible experience during a horrible time. In the 1930s post World War I America had a total collapse of the stock market causing the Great Depression affecting the economy on a global scale, but hitting hardest at home in the United States. However, the economy wasn’t the only thing that was hit hard during this time; seemingly unstoppable dust storms ravaged farming land from the west to east coast hitting hardest in the great plains in the middle section the the US became known as the Dust Bowl. The Dust Bowl was not entirely a causation of bad luck on nature, it was caused by an increasing demand for crops, advancements in farming technology, while the final nail in the coffin was a lack of rain.

During the Dust Bowl some people made the decision to stay at their farms. Huge drifts of dirt piled up on homesteaders’ doors, came in the cracks of windows and came down from the ceilings. Barnyards and pastures were buried in dirt. After about 850 million tons of topsoil was blown away in 1935 alone. The government responded to this by saying “Unless something is done, the western plains will be as arid as the Arabian desert.”

The Great Depression was a time of economic destress in the United States that eventually affected the whole world. The stock market crashed causing chaos among the people. Everywhere people were going to banks demanding they get their money back. However, these banks were not prepared for this and did not have the money to give back. As banks began to fail, business failed as well. The number of unemployed people rose steadily and homeless loitered the streets. Most families could not even put meals on the table. However, the group of people that were hit the hardest by this depression were the American farmers. They struggled to make money selling their crops, were faced with the Dust Bowl, and became bankrupt and kicked off of their farms.

Leaders and governments around the world have labelled refugees as being a burden on their country either directly or indirectly. These leaders only see them as people who are trying to get into their country to escape the civil war, but fail to see that the refugees are also risking their lives in the process. At present, there are approximately 54.5 million refugees that are displaced, the largest refugee crisis the world has ever seen and they have nowhere to go. The question of doing the right thing and taking them in has been squashed due to various reasons and it appears to be that each country has adopted the ‘each man for himself’ policy by stating that it is their duty to only look after its citizens and no one else.

800,000 refugees are expected to flee from their war torn countries into Europe. These people flee because they can no longer live where they were staying. They travel to Europe in hopes of a better life, but don’t always make it to their destination. Many people die along the way, which makes the heart ache even worse. Not only have they had to run for the sake of life, many close friends and family members of these refugees have died along the difficult journey to Europe. Europe is also taking on a big impact, however economically, the question is whether the effect will be costly or beneficial. Although the amount of refugees flooding into Europe from their war torn home countries is high, and it seems as if there will be huge costs, there

Imagine having to leave your home just having to know that you can lose your life at any moment, and or the life of a loved one? To be tormentented to know that if you flee your life mill marginally get better? This mentality is shown in the test “Refugee Crisis ‘ the water was coming from inside the dinghy- I thought I was going to drown” and “Inside the lebanese camps where syrian refugees are struggling to survive”. This is the impact of the Civil War that is going on still, as the government wants to form a dictatorship, also how some Desperately try to smuggle themselves. Overall, Syrian refugees faced and are still facing many struggles when fleeing home, such as family issues and horrible living conditions.

The government should make it so that Syrian refugees are in a special program but don’t need to go through the UNHCR and deal with all the paperwork. This would make life so much easier for refugees and sponsor groups. It worked in the past, why not now?