#DirtyThirties

The Dirty Thirties was an extraordinarily strange period in American history.  The so-called "Dustbowl" was created when farmers out West began converting grasslands into crop fields.  The tall grasses in the Plains region thrived in the arid environment and required very little water for survival.  They benefitted the landscape by holding fast the dry land in which they lived. The farmers that moved out West didn’t initially understand that farming techniques that are successful in the eastern part of the country would not fare as well in the much drier Plains. 

They went about their merry way farming as usual, but when the region suffered a period of droughts in 1930s, all hell broke loose. Well, not hell, but dirt. All dirt broke loose. Literally.

Without the native grasses to retain moisture and hold the dirt to the earth, the high winds that are prevalent in that area took all of the soil with them.  The dirt went everywhere. EVERYWHERE. Huge dust storms could blow up in a matter of minutes and cover miles-wide swaths of land and black out the sun.  Tens of thousands of farm families were forced to leave because their crops failed in the droughts and it was too dangerous to live in the severe dust storms.  These troubles compounded the effects of the Great Depression and made life miserable for the people of the Oklahoma, Texas, and other states. 

The storms got dust and dirt in every nook, cranny, and crevice of people’s lives and homes.  Many people died from “dust pneumonia” when trapped out in quick-forming storms, or from living in those conditions for too long.  Dust pneumonia was not pneumonia at all; it was respiratory failure caused by getting dirt in your lungs.  It suffocated men, women, and children.  Eventually better farming practices were used and they droughts released their grip on the Great Plains, but the Dirty Thirties killed and displaced many American families.  The dust even travelled to the Chicago and New York when it got swept into the Jetstream.  

Here is a photo of a dust storm from 1934 in Oklahoma:

Photo from: 

Franklin D. Roosevelt Library Public Domain Photographs, 1882 - 1962