Dust Bowl

The Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s. The phenomenon was caused by a combination of natural factors (severe drought) and human-made factors: a failure to apply dryland farming methods to prevent wind erosion, most notably the destruction of the natural topsoil by settlers in the region.[1][2] The drought came in three waves: 1934, 1936, and 1939–1940, but some regions of the High Plains experienced drought conditions for as long as eight years.[3] It exacerbated an already existing agricultural recession.

The Dust Bowl has been the subject of many cultural works, including John Steinbeck's 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath; the Dust Bowl Ballads of Woody Guthrie; and Dorothea Lange's photographs depicting the conditions of migrants, particularly Migrant Mother, taken in 1936.

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference whatwelearned was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Ben Cook; Ron Miller; Richard Seager. "Did dust storms make the Dust Bowl drought worse?". Columbia University. Archived from the original on November 2, 2018. Retrieved November 9, 2018.
  3. ^ "Drought: A Paleo Perspective – 20th Century Drought". National Climatic Data Center. Archived from the original on February 8, 2017. Retrieved April 5, 2009.
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