|
Victims of the Dust Bowl
The Dust Bowl Oklahoma , USA John Steinbeck wrote in his 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath: "And then the dispossessed were drawn west- from Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico; from Nevada and Arkansas, families, tribes, dusted out, tractored out. Car-loads, caravans, homeless and hungry; twenty thousand and fifty thousand and a hundred thousand and two hundred thousand. They streamed over the mountains, hungry and restless - restless as ants, scurrying to find work to do - to lift, to push, to pull, to pick, to cut - anything, any burden to bear, for food. The kids are hungry. We got no place to live. Like ants scurrying for work, for food, and most of all for land." Why did Soil Erosion take place in Oklahoma in the
early years of the 20th Century? Outcome expected: Students should understand both the physical and human factors underlying soil erosion and appreciate that soil erosion can be reduced by suitable management schemes.
By studying the selected websites you may find out more about this early 20th Century environmental disaster. http://www.usd.edu/anth/epa/dust.html http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/dustbowl/ If you want to find out about the Dust Bowl but also other areas of the world that are experiencing soil conservation problems eg the Sahel and Brazil. http://www.usd.edu/anth/epa/future.html What will the future be like on the Great Plains? See an historical series of images. "Our Soil is Blowing Away": a slide show from 10,000 BC, Crow Creek 1325, the Dust Bowl and the Future. http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/afctshtml/tshome.html Voices of the dustbowl…look at the button "Migrant Experience" What experiences did migrants have when they reached California after fleeing the dustbowl of Oklahoma. Look up in an atlas where both these states are. How far did the migrants have to travel? "California was emphatically not the promised land of the migrants' dreams. Although the weather was comparatively balmy and farmers' fields were bountiful with produce, Californians also felt the effects of the Depression. Local and state infrastructures were already overburdened, and the steady stream of newly arriving migrants was more than the system could bear. After struggling to make it to California, many found themselves turned away at its borders. Those who did cross over into California found that the available labor pool was vastly disproportionate to the number of job openings that could be filled. Migrants who found employment soon learned that this surfeit of workers caused a significant reduction in the going wage rate. Even with an entire family working, migrants could not support themselves on these low wages. Many set up camps along irrigation ditches in the farmers' fields. These "ditchbank" camps fostered poor sanitary conditions and created a public health problem. http://www.soundprint.org/radio/display_show/ID/5/name/Voices+from+the+Dustbowl Find out about the effect on ordinary people. How were they affected? You can obtain some audio voices form people who lived through this experience. What was the day of the Black Blizzard like? There is an hourly diary of events.
Inside homes the dust was almost as bad. Women like Mrs. Holladay had learned to knead bread dough inside drawers opened just wide enough for two hands, to stir pots quickly and above all, to keep all water you didn't want turning into red mud inside sealed Mason jars. But on this day hope was in the air. Thirteen-year-old Harley went down to the horse pond to skip stones. Use www.google.com to search
for images of the dustbowl http://www.mswcc.state.ms.us/iq.html
http://www.xdc.arm.gov/data_viewers/sgp_surfchar/Oklasoil_new.html
|
