The Dust Bowl: A Decade of Devastation in the Great Plains

The Dust Bowl of the 1930s lasted about a decade, devastating the arid farming regions of the Great Plains in the middle and southern states (New Mexico, Kansas, Nevada, Arkansas...). Agricultural devastation brought on by a severe drought, windblown dust, and poor farming practices exacerbated the effects of the Great Depression for these middle states.

An important factor was the rapid mechanization of farms. The land had always been owned by a few, whose families lived in very poor conditions, only receiving a meager share of the farm's profit.

By the 1930s, this scenario had changed, with most landowners buying up tractors and other machinery and evicting tenants to open up the land into vast fields which they could cultivate themselves.

During years with adequate rainfall, the land produced abundant crops. But as the droughts of the early 1930s deepened, farmers kept plowing and planting, weakening the natural structure of the soil. In addition, one-crop farming further contributed to the soil's decline.

One-crop farming can lead to plant pathogens and diseases, as insects and weeds adapt to the soil and attack the crops, eventually decreasing the quantity produced. Furthermore, using pesticides and herbicides in the same field can have the same effect—the soil becomes used to it, thus needing other types of stronger insect and weed killers.

In the absence of rain, the heavily overcultivated fields of the Great Plains yielded nothing. Crops would wither and die, and the topsoil, no longer anchored by growing roots, became loose and was easily picked up by strong winds and carried in billowing clouds across the region. Huge dust storms blanketed the land, and even the most well-sealed homes could have a thick layer of dust on furniture. As dust particles lingered in the air for days, people found it hard to breathe.

By the mid-1930s, the drought and dust storms had crippled countless farm families. Without crops to sell, farmers could not make money to feed their families or pay their mortgages. Many lost their farms to banks from which they had taken out loans for land or machinery in the prosperous 1920s. Unable to keep up the payments, the banks foreclosed on the farms. It was this combination of factors that led to a surge in poor, unemployed southerners moving West to seek security in California's fertile plains.