The Dust Bowl

The Dust Bowl was so devastating because of it's timing. The World War recession demanded farmers plant more grains. With the introduction of Mechanized Farming, farmers quickly plowed millions of acres taking out drought resistant prairie grass. In 1931 a drought hit and all the crops died leaving loose topsoil that blew up with the wind hundreds of millions acres of topsoil. The dust storms went with the winds, and sometimes reaching far east covering the Statue of Liberty and coating ships in the Atlantic with dust. It made 250,000 people move out their homes. It killed 7,000 by giving them dust pneumonia, a disease caused by inhaling to much dust. People called these dust storms black blizzards.
In April 14, 1935 the worst dust storm occurred sweeping 124,000,000 acres of topsoil with it, from the Oklahoma panhandle. People called that day Black Sunday and from that day people called the great plains the dust Bowl. One-third of farmers moved to California to find work and they faced discrimination, people called them okies. They lived in shantytowns and lived in tents along irrigation
ditches. People were desperate for jobs because of the great depression. It finally ended in 1939 with the first rain showers.