The Dust Bowl

The Dirty Thirties

The Dust Bowl was a terrible time during the depression, to which, there was a significant drought.  At the time, there wasn't much agricultural education on dryland farming, so the adolescent southerners migrating west just didn't actually do it.  This then resulted in a significant amount of wind erosion to the soil which caused "black blizzards" or significant clouds of dust that would coat the region in a beach like coating.  

Since this dust bowl then destroyed most families livelihoods, it thus created a displacement of people.  Most of the "Okie" families that were affected by such, then migrated to California or to a northern part of the country where they wouldn't have to rely so heavily on rain.

So how did this happen?

• Homestead Act 1860
• Encouraged people to head West and become farmers for 160 acres of land
• In return, it'd be a small yearly fee but after five years of continuous residency, the land was theirs
• Kinkaid Act 1904
• Amended the Homestead Act so that settlers of Nebraska were now offered 640 acres
• Enlarged Homestead Act 1909
• This then amended the Homestead Act again so that it was doubled for all of the southwest so that it went from 160 to 320 acres per settler
• Over farming from those three acts
• Ill-education
• Bad luck

With the overall agricultural aspect of the United States suddenly vanished, this then significantly contributed to the overall length of the Great Depression.