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My parents were "Depression babies" and told me lots of stories about the dirty thirties, as they called them. They were in the north-northeast section of Nebraska, and the dust storms were not as bad there as Kansas and Oklahoma, but bad enough. The drought was horrible, and both their families lost many acres of crops and lots of livestock; many from anthrax that ravaged the country more than once. Dad remembered burning carcasses in big pits more than once - it was the only way to make sure the virus wouldn't spread. Both remembered their mothers hanging wet sheets across the windows during the dust storms to try and trap at least some of the dirt blasting through the cracks. Dad remembered trying to put fencing back up because the dirt would drift like snow and tear wire to the ground. They tried to practice low till farming, like you are describing, and it helped, but the wind tore into the land and anywhere it found a foothold, especially in the sandhills country, it started a blowout and that quickly grew with each new storm. As kids, my brother and I would go into these blowouts large and small with flour sifters from the kitchen and find arrowheads and little pieces of pottery and stone. If you were really lucky, you might find a stone used to scrape hides or a piece that looked like it might have been a pounding tool. That area was on my great-uncle's place on the very east edge of the sandhills. He and his sister never married and had about a section and a half of sandhills and a little black dirt. He figured out a long time before anyone else about planting big shelterbelts to deflect the wind and rotating his Angus cattle herd from pasture to pasture so they never chewed the grasses down more than about 4". This kept his land intact and his cattle looking pretty nice long after most of the neighbors had turned their places into wastelands. I can't imagine how many loads of water he took out on his buckboard to get 3 1/2 miles of shelterbelt trees started.
My dad was a heck of a good shot, and he had to be, because they hunted for food a large share of the time and ammunition was expensive. Rabbits, pheasants, and squirrels were the preferred game. He said some rabbits carried a "fever" that it was wise to watch for; it sickened people, cooked well or not. Both their families raised sufficient produce to feed themselves, but still ate what they could off the land so they could sell the rest for flour, sugar, seed, or repair parts for their homes and machinery. Although they never really went hungry, Mom said they always put what they could away, for the winters were not easy. No one threw anything away; repairs and fabrication used any and all materials used to ship food, liquids, etc. Dresses and aprons were made from flour sacks, and most kids went without shoes in the warm months so they could be used in the cold. Mom said there were some cases of tetanus stemming from that, although they called it lockjaw then. Every article of clothing was worn until there was not enough left to wash, and what little they had was carefully maintained and cared for - a habit I picked up and I admit it does look a little strange in this disposable day and age. Today most of us cannot imagine how it was, and further how we could ever live in those circumstances....
The most poignant thing I ever heard from them about those Depression days was a thing my Mom said when she was in her last two months of life. At one point, a hospice volunteer asked if she would like a preacher to come visit, or maybe if she felt up to it make a short trip up to a church a mile from where we live. Mom thought for a minute, and said, "You know, when I was a girl during the depression, my shoes were very worn and I had only enough cardboard to patch the holes enough to get to school and back every week; so I didn't go to church." The gal from the hospice was probably in her thirties and had no idea what my Mom was talking about...
I think that story exemplifies just what those days were like for so many people. But it burned a resolve and sacrifice into them that enabled the greatest generation to win a very difficult war a decade later.
Phenomenal story! Thanky you! How blessed we are today! And as an afterthought, Bakerfield, California probably would not be what it is today without the westward migration from the dustbowl as it is filled with the decendants of those migrants.
I do not remember the author's name but try to find a book titled "Dirt". It chronicles the downfall of many societies because they abused and lost their productive soil.
Ironically as we plant fence to fence to supply the corn to alcohol factories we are setting ourselves up for another dust bowl.
GregW,
I found the titles of two books that deal with the subject of dirt: one is Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations by David R Montgomery. However, I think the one you had in mind is Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth by William Logan, which received a five-star rating in Amazon books by several readers.
Since I was working in my own small garden (approx. 500 sq. feet) this morning, the subject is timely. I'm trying the no-till method of gardening by just disturbing just two or three inches of the top soil. After 35 years of adding compost, the soil is now quite friable and easy to work with hand tools. This has worked pretty well for the last two or three years and allows the worms to survive without tearing them up with deep tilling.The robins seem to like the idea as well, as they wait for me to leave the garden.
John
I found the titles of two books that deal with the subject of dirt: one is Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations by David R Montgomery. However, I think the one you had in mind is Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth by William Logan, which received a five-star rating in Amazon books by several readers.
Since I was working in my own small garden (approx. 500 sq. feet) this morning, the subject is timely. I'm trying the no-till method of gardening by just disturbing just two or three inches of the top soil. After 35 years of adding compost, the soil is now quite friable and easy to work with hand tools. This has worked pretty well for the last two or three years and allows the worms to survive without tearing them up with deep tilling.The robins seem to like the idea as well, as they wait for me to leave the garden.
John
Slightly off topic but, Google Milan Tennessee and they should have a link for the annual "no till" festival. Quite interesting if you are into no till farming.
The Dust Bowl is something I just got interested in learning more about. I know it happened in the 1930's when farmers started farming wheat out in Western Kansas and Oklahoma. Were these the only areas effected? Were areas like Iowa and Nebraska effected as well? Just curious to see if any History Buffs had interesting information on the topic....
Any info is appreciated!
OK, I know this is an insanely old thread, but I figured I'd piggy back on it instead of starting a new one on the same topic. I've known that there was such a thing as the Dust Bowl for many years, but I never really gave it much thought. But my interest has been piqued by (of all things) helping my daughter do a homework assignment that included a few questions about it, so now I'm kind of curious about it. I know that Ken Burns did a documentary about it, and I plan on watching it soon. I've never read nor seen The Grapes of Wrath. I was always under the impression that it was more about the people moving to California, rather than their experiences in the Dust Bowl itself. Is this not the case? I know it's fiction, but would I get a good sense of what the Dust Bowl was like by reading it?
I don't think the OP is here anymore, but for anyone else wondering about his question, I looked it up on Wikipedia, and they had a map that shows the areas that were the most strongly affected.
It appears that the epicenter of the Dust Bowl was Cimarron County, Oklahoma. It was there that the iconic photo of the father and his two children fleeing a dust storm was taken.
If you read "Grapes of Wrath" or watch the classic movie, realize that the storyline is a story first and has slant to it to make the plight of the characters represent a compilation of problems. The dust bowl and depression years were severe for a lot of people and the states didn't have the capacity or funds to solve the issues, nor was there really much expectation that governments could make things much better.
I used to like the movie, but with the greater knowledge of age I see through a lot of the propaganda and emotional traps embedded in it. When a large disaster is portrayed only through a single set of eyes, it can seem insurmountable or can seem simple to fix. When the larger view and conflicting needs are fully exposed, the story is not that cut and dried.
I guess people nowadays don't have an appreciation of how bad things were in America in the 1930's. The Dust Bowl and the migration of displaced people West into places like California looking for work. Can you imagine 25% unemployment in many large cities at that time.
I recommend that you watch the 2012 documentary series, 'The Dust Bowl,' which is in 4 parts. It was produced and directed by Ken Burns, and has been televised on PBS a number of times since its release.
As usual, Burns gives a thorough and superb examination of this tragic chapter in US history.
My father lived in OK during the 1930s. His family lived in NE OK. They farmed cotton. Rains were very scarce for several years, and when the cotton was planted, and the rains did not come, the crop would be lost. My grandfather lost his farm to a bank, just as the family in Grapes of Wrath did, but not until during the War.
My dad could not stay in his family home if we was not bringing in an income, so he traveled west, picking fruit for money in late thirties and early forties. He was one of ten kids. One older brother did migrate to CA.
In the first part of Grapes of Wrath, you learn of the widespread bank foreclosures of farms. The book is an American classic. It is not a hard read. See the movie, sure, but read the book first.
The Great Depression had an enormous effect on the country. My FIL, from rural IN, joined the CCC because he could not find work. Before that, he rode the rails as a transient.
We simply do not have frame of reference for how badly off ordinary people were during that time.
It's caught my attention that no one here has taken note that The Grapes of Wrath is essentially two books in parallel; the first section of each chapter is devoted to the underlying conditions and cultural anomalies which led to the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and the collapse of he simplistic agrarian society under which the Okies lived, and sustained themselves for decades, but eventually suffered and fell.
The book also puts the lie to the portrait of Steinbeck as a simplistic peddler of class warfare; consider. if you will, the actions of the manipulative (and ruthless) used-car salesman in one of the early chapters - a soulless, conscience-free character matched only by Cathy Ames / Kate Trask in East of Eden. But Steinbeck doesn't attempt to sit in judgement here -- at least, no more than with the bulldozer operator flattening the Joad homestead. or the proprietors of the roadside store depicted in the Joads' exodus.
As an admitted economic conservative, the finest tribute I can pay to Steinbeck is that the simplicity of his message diminished in inverse proportion to the complexity of his characterizations as he advanced in years -- and wisdom.
Last edited by 2nd trick op; 09-22-2019 at 08:45 PM..
I don't know if you would call this the "Dust Bowl"..... but the first night's episode of Ken Burns' "History of Country Music" documentary that aired last week, mentioned the Maddox farm family in Alabama. The parents sold all their possessions for just $35, then with their 5 children started WALKING to California. They eventually rode sporadically on railroad boxcars but it took months to get there. Eventually some of the children formed a very successful country-and-western band in California.
Just incredible.
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