Dust Bowl Research Paper

827 Words4 Pages
Do you know why the 1930s Dust Bowl was the worst drought in the history of the United States (Streissguth 38)? Maybe it was because the overly eroded soil from years of using inadequate farming techniques created the perfect environment for dangerous dust storms (Frederick 315). Then to make things worse, they had little to no rain in the early 1930s (Streissguth 38). Soon as a result of these bad farming habits and severe drought the plains became a gigantic Dust Bowl, which was extremely hard to live in and even harder for them to overcome. At first there were only a few small homesteads in the plains so soil erosion wasn't a big deal, but as time when on and farms got bigger the problem escalated. Eventually, when World War I hit the U.S.…show more content…
To appease old folklore ideas on how to make it rain some people killed snakes and hung them belly-up on fences (Klein). Other places preformed similar acts of desperation, including one Texas town who paid a self proclaimed rainmaker five hundred dollars to shoot rockets into the atmosphere and produce showers (Klein). Needless to say none of these ideas worked very well and it wasn't long before companies were trying to make their products the center of these crazy ideas. The New Jersey Asphalt Company offered paving the plains to end the Dust Bowl (Klein). Then Sisalkraft, a reputable paper company, suggested protecting the soil from erosion with their waterproof paper (Klein). They weren't the only ones with big ideas, soon the government took charge in ending this foolishness. Eventually they converted over ten million acres back to its original grassland (Klein). Then in 1935 the Soil Conservation Act was adopted, followed by the Domestic Allotment Act in 1936 (Leuchtenburg 33). Both of these helped end the Dust Bowl by allowing farmers who used appropriate farming methods to be paid for their efforts (Leuchtenburg 33). They even paid Pare Lorentz, a filmmaker, with federal relief funds to call attention to the Dust Bowl in films like "The Plow that Broke the Plains" in 1936 and "The River" in 1937 (Leuchtenburg 49). Then finally, after years of drought in the late 1930s, it began to rain regularly again and farmers were able to harvest crops again (Frederick

More about Dust Bowl Research Paper

Open Document