Teacher Development The Dust Bowl By Walter Eskridge

Teacher Development
The Dust Bowl
By Walter Eskridge
What Was The Dust Bowl?
The dust bowl was a term that was written April 15, 1935 by a
reporter for The Evening Star, a Washington D.C. newspaper. In that
article, Robert Geiger used
“the dust bowl” to refer to
powerful dust storms and to
the area where the dust
storms happened. The term
quickly caught on and it is
used to the present day to
refer to the drought and
dust storms of the 1930s.
The dust bowl lasted about
eleven years from 1930 to
1941. The map above shows where the dust bowl was. The Oklahoma
portion of the dust bowl was the panhandle and the northwest. Other parts
of the state were affected, but in those places, it was not as disastrous as it
was in the northwest. Farmers in the worst hit areas lost all of their soil and
were not able to raise a crop or feed or water their livestock.
What Caused The Dust Bowl?
Initially the causes of the dust bowl seem obvious: heat, wind and
drought. However the area had experienced these conditions before without
having devastating dust storms. What made the 1930s different?

1. In the area that became the dust bowl, the
protective layer of grass was plowed under
and destroyed. Prairie grass roots had held
down the soil for thousands of years through
periods of drought and high wind. When
they were destroyed, nothing remained to hold the soil.
2. Farmers often plowed parallel to the wind direction. That is, they
plowed in the same direction in which the wind blew. Then it was
easier for the wind to pick up the soil and blow it away.
3. Farmers planted crops that usually took nutrients out of the soil, so
each year there were fewer nutrients in the soil to support the
following year’s crop.
4. Drought made farm land into a desert because for eleven years, there
was very little rain or snow. Earlier droughts were probably shorter.
Damage Caused by the Dust Storms
Soil Damage
Dust storms, dusters, or boilers were
powerful and abrasive to the soil. A boiler
was essentially a sand blaster. Grains of
sand pushed by strong wind cut through
organic ground cover and carried the soil
away. In the picture to the right, the top
layer of fertile soil has been carried away.
All that remains are particles of loose sand and clay- very little to support
plants.
Psychological Damage
Imagine if you can the despair that a farm family must have felt when
they had their first look at their fields after a duster. Their livelihood had

een removed. In some cases, this included not only their cash crop but
also the kitchen garden where they raised the fruits and vegetables on which
they lived. If so, they had no income, nothing
from the garden to eat, and many of them had
payments to make for their use of the land.
Dusters were also a great threat to
livestock as their nostrils filled with dust; it was
difficult or impossible for them to breathe. After
a duster, children used brushes to clean the nostrils of their horses, cattle
and other livestock, so that they could breathe. There came a point where
there was no water to provide for the basic needs of cattle, horses, hogs,
and other farm animals. These animals had not only been a source of
income, but they were also a source of food for the farm family. Finally
many families shot their cattle rather than allow them to die a slow death
from thirst. The cattle had been a source of financial stability in their lives,
but then they were gone.
In March 1932, there were 22 days of dust storms. Imagine that dust
is in everything. When you wake in the morning, you are covered with it. It
is in your nose, your eyes, your teeth and hair. It gets into your food. It
comes through windows and doors that are closed
tightly. There is no place that dust cannot infiltrate.
All of these problems took a terrible toll on farm
families. There was less and less reason to hope that
things were going to improve. It was worse for
families who did not own their land because they
could be evicted for not keeping up the payments on
their homes and fields. Consequently, mental illness
and suicide became serious threats.

On April 14, 1935, also known as Black Sunday, many people sincerely
believed that the end of the world had arrived. They believed that it was the
end of everything and that they were about to die. Some did die.
Survival
Surviving a person’s first dust storm was proof
that it could be done. In spite of the darkness and the
fear, it was possible to survive. Also a common coping
technique was to say that every day that it does not rain
is one day closer to the day that it does rain. Provided
that the dusters did not kill you first, things would improve.
People used humor to survive. “Did you hear about the
birds flying backwards in a boiler so they wouldn’t get dust in
their eyes?” “Did you hear about the ground hog lifted up in a
duster digging frantically trying get to the ground?” There was
also the story about a man walking down the road when he
came to a huge mound of dust and dirt. Sitting atop the
mound was a man’s hat. The walker saw this and thought it peculiar for a
perfectly good hat to be sitting there. He stooped over and lifted the hat.
When he did, he saw that there was a head under the hat. The man under
the hat looked around and blinked. The first man asked, “Are you all right?”
The man who had been under the hat said, “Yes, I’m fine.” The first man
asked, “Can I get you something?” The other man replied, “No, I’m fine,
thank you.” “Well would you like for me to take you somewhere?” The first
man asked. The other replied, “No, I have a horse under me.”
There was also the joke about farmers who waited till the wind blew
back from the opposite direction so that the wind would return their soil
before they did their planting. There were the farmers who joked that they
had to pay taxes in Texas because that was where their farms had blown. It

got so hot that there were hens that laid hard boiled eggs. These examples
of humor helped a person to deal with hard times.
One way to survive those times was to keep ownership of one’s land.
Even though conditions were very bad, there was some comfort to be had
from knowing that your land was yours. One of the great challenges to
keeping ownership of land was that there was the property tax that had to
be paid each year, and taxes could only be paid with cash. When a farmer’s
cash crop was lost, cash was very difficult to come by. One could make a
little cash making 30¢ an hour shoveling sand drifts from the
highways. Even so, land owners had to be extremely frugal
with cash. They could barter and produce goods for their
daily needs in many cases, and this allowed them to conserve
their cash. When the land tax became due, they could pay it
and maintain their ownership for another year. This helped them feel that
they had some control over their lives.
Another survival strategy was to eat what was available. One food
that was abundant was jack rabbits which were used
to make a stew called hasenpfeffer. The rabbits were
a pest because they ate crops, but they were also
edible. Farm families rounded up the rabbits by
flushing them from their hiding places and then
driving them into a pen. Once they were caught, the
farmers killed the rabbits with clubs. They were not
very good to eat, but in a pinch, they were a meal.
Stop the Dust
One of the first things a person would see in the morning was a
reminder that the dust had been busy overnight. After getting up from bed,
a person could look back at his or her pillow and see where their head had
been. It would be the light colored space where dust had not settled.

People used a variety of strategies to diminish or stop dust invasion.
Closing the windows and doors is one. However the dust was made of such
tiny particles that with the pushing power of a sixty mile an hour wind, it
could still get into the house.
The problem with closing the windows is that the house would soon
get hot in the summer. In order to allow some air to flow through, the
family could tack wet sheets around the window frames.
When the dust hit the wet sheet, it would get trapped on the
sheet and not get into the house. That was true until the
sheet dried, and then the dust would flow right through.
One effective method to stop dust invasion was to melt a pot of
paraffin on the stove. Paraffin is candle wax. When it was melted, rags
Dust
were dipped into the paraffin. Before they could cool, they were stuffed into
door frames and around the window sashes. When the paraffin cooled, it
formed an effective seal against the dust. The problem was that someone
would eventually need to go outside. When a door was opened, the paraffin
seal around the door was broken such that the dust could fly in.
Some people tried to deal with the dust that was already in the house
by waving a wet sheet in the air in the hope that dust would cling to it as it
combed the air.
To keep dust out of food, the plates on which the family would eat
were kept face down on the dining table until they were ready to eat. At the
last moment, they turned the plates face up and served their food on them.
However sometimes the dust was so bad that the family simply skipped the
plates and ate straight out of the pan in which it was cooked.

In the picture above, notice the size of the coming dust cloud compared to the
buildings in the foreground. Notice how dark the boiler is. Would you be able to see
once the duster got to you? Would you be able to breathe? How would you feel?
Bizarre Experiences
The heat, drought, wind, and blowing dust provided unique conditions
that resulted in strange things happening. For example a man was reading
a newspaper on the sofa in his living room when suddenly the ceiling burst
open and a large pile of dust and dirt fell out of the attic. After he recovered
his composure and examined the situation, he saw that the vent openings in
the attic that open to the outside had provided a way that dust and dirt
could enter the attic and collect there as one boiler after another blew
through. Finally the weight of the dirt caused the ceiling to collapse.
During a duster, the flame from a lantern would be blue instead of
bright yellow or gold. The reason was that there was so much dust in the air
that the flame could not get enough oxygen to make it burn brightly.
A crow’s nest was discovered that was made entirely of bits of barbed
wire because those were the only materials available to the crow. A man
ran over his own mailbox with his automobile because a sand dune hid the
mailbox’s location. Tumbleweeds collected in a fence which filled with dust
and dirt. The tumbleweeds eventually caught the wind and acted as a sail

which pulled the fence posts out of the ground. Cattle were able to walk out
of fenced pastures because the sand dunes formed a heap over the fence,
and the cattle just walked out.
Driving in a dust storm was difficult because it was difficult for the
engine and the people to breathe. Also it was very difficult
to see the road. One way that drivers dealt with this was to
have someone lie on the right front fender and someone to
lie on the left front fender. The people who were on the
fenders were closer to the road and were able to see when
the car was about to go off of the road. If the car was too far to the left, the
person on the left fender might yell, “Go right!” After the driver made that
correction, the person on the other fender might yell, “Go left.” In so doing,
they were able to stay on the road.
As dust accumulates in the lungs, it causes dust pneumonia
which can cause the victim to become delirious and have
hallucinations. A man who was suffering from these
hallucinations saw rotating merry-go-round horses. One of the
horses was about to strike his mother, and the man said,
“Mamma, watch, one’s going to hit you in the head.” Some of the
treatments for dust pneumonia were rubbing skunk grease on the patient’s
chest. Another was to ingest coal oil or turpentine with some sugar. Still
another was to apply kerosene lard ointment onto the throat.
My mother told me of an incident in which her chickens thought it was
the end of the world. The chickens had gone from the egg to adulthood
without ever seeing rain. Then there came the rare day when it rained. The
chickens went mad. They were all running around frantically.
The family finally realized what was happening. Essentially, the
sky was falling, and the chickens had never experienced that
before. They did not know what was happening, so they gave

this turn of events their worst interpretation.
It was said that wind direction could be determined by the color of the
dust. If the wind was yellow, it was coming from New Mexico. If it was red,
it was coming from Colorado. If it was black, the wind was coming from
Kansas.
Daily Meals
Meals were usually prepared at home often on a kerosene stove. If a
family still had a cow, some chickens, and a hog, then milk, eggs,
cornbread, biscuits, beans and bacon were usually parts of a farm meal.
Families who did not have any livestock left could get bacon, butter, and
other food from a government relief program.
If they still had enough water to keep their kitchen garden green, they
might have tomatoes, potatoes, okra, peas and other things to prepare a
meal. All leftovers were saved for later meals.
On the rare occasion when a family would splurge on food, they could
go into town and get hamburgers for 5¢ each or a plate of fried chicken for
25¢. They could also go to a grocery store and buy a dozen eggs for 7¢, a
pound of beef roast for 8¢, two pounds of bacon for 25¢, or a dozen oranges
for 19¢.
Migration
Many farmers were sharecroppers. That means that they did not own
the land they farmed. When they harvested their crop, they paid for the use
of the land by giving the land owner a portion of their harvest. For a time,
this arrangement worked out well for everyone, but when the crops failed,
the system broke down. Land owners wanted to be paid, but sharecroppers
could not pay. In some cases, the owners had the sharecroppers’ houses
demolished to force them off the land. Then homeless sharecroppers had no
choice but to move on.

Rumors had reached the dust bowl region that there
were jobs and water in California. California was the land of
milk and honey where a person could start over and make a
new life. Thousands with their meager belongings began
the trek to the promise of California.
Author John Steinbeck wrote the novel The Grapes of
Wrath about the Joads, one Oklahoma family who made the journey to
California. In the novel, they experienced bitter disappointment. Upon
arriving in California, the “Okies” were unwanted, harassed, and treated as
unwelcome intruders. Some were so discouraged that they came back to
Oklahoma.
Lessons Learned
By 1941, the rain returned and the dust bowl ended, but farmers had
come to know that they had to change the way that they farmed. They had
learned that the old ways were not sustainable and that they had to take
care of the land. This was done several ways.
1. Soil has only so much nutrition in it, and nutrients have to be put back
into the soil to keep from exhausting it. This took the form of crop
rotation. Crops like clover, beans, peas, and alfalfa
put nutrients into the soil, so if a farmer raised one of
those crops every few years, the risk of depleting the
soil was reduced.
2. Farmers learned that they needed to plow perpendicular to the
prevailing wind direction. Before that, they had plowed parallel to the
wind direction. That had made it easier for the wind to pick up soil
and carry it away.
3. Farmers started planting wind breaks. These were lines of fast
growing trees that were aligned to be perpendicular to the prevailing

wind direction. Once the trees grew tall, they formed a living barrier
to the wind, and that helped to protect the soil.
A new crop coming up among
residues from last season's
harvest
4. In the past, farmers had always plowed their
fields. That is, they turned the soil over to a depth of
about ten inches each year. Gradually they moved
toward no till or minimal tillage. That means that
they did not plow their fields at all or plowed only to a
minimal depth. This was helpful because the more
soil was disturbed the more vulnerable it became to
wind erosion. Not only did they lessen their plowing,
but also stalks, leaves, chaff, and other crop residue was left to lie on
the field after harvest. This not only helped to protect the soil from
erosion, but it also allowed nutrients to blend with the soil as the
biomass decomposed.
5. Reservoirs, stock ponds, and other
forms of water detention were built
to make agriculture less vulnerable
to periodic droughts. In the 1930s
Pensacola Dam, the largest multiple
arch dam in the world, was built in
northeast Oklahoma. This dam and
others helped to provide a reserve
for agricultural and municipal water
as well as hydroelectric power generation.

Hard Decisions
Questions for Discussion
There were tough decisions that families had to make during the dust
bowl years. The following activity will help you understand this.
Here is your situation: you have 150 head of cattle, three horses,
three pigs, 12 chickens, a couple of goats, and
your family of five people. Your pond is dry,
your creek is also dry, and your well provides
only enough water for your family’s daily needs
plus enough to keep your kitchen garden. You
cannot provide water for all your cows, horses
and other livestock. You have to make a decision. What will you do?
Possible choices include:
Allow all of the animals to die of thirst
Water only some of the animals knowing
that the others will die
Slaughter the cows and pigs for their meat
and other products, but that raises the
question of what to do with all that meat.
Sell the livestock; however, most people in the area would also not be
able to water the livestock that they’ve already got.
Think of your own solution.

Dust Storm
Simulation
1. With both hands, tightly cover your mouth and nose. Now breathe.
Do this until you notice that it is hard to breathe. During the dust
bowl, many people found it difficult to breathe because their mouth,
nose, throat, and lungs had dust in them. This activity should give
you some idea of how that would feel.
2. Do the following activities outside. As you do them, notice that there
are different results. These activities simulate conditions before and
during the dust bowl.
a. Get down close to a grassy area and blow. Try to blow the dirt
out from under the grass. How much dirt can you blow away?
b. Get some dry, loose dirt.
i. Using sticks or something similar, plow furrows into the
loose dirt. Then blow the dirt in the same direction that the
furrows go. Try to move the dirt with your blowing.
ii. Using sticks or something similar plow furrows through the
loose dirt. At a ninety degree angle, blow across the
furrows while trying to move the dirt.
c. With your palm facing you, place your hand in front of dry, loose
dirt and blow. Does the dirt behind your hand move?
Which dirt moves, and which dirt doesn’t?
d. Using the same or similar dirt as before, sprinkle the dirt with
water. Blow on it and try to move it.
Activity a. simulates conditions before the dust bowl.
Activity b. illustrates the different way of plowing farmers started to
reduce soil loss. Farmers were advised during the dust bowl to start

plowing their fields in a direction that goes across the wind direction
instead of in line with the wind. For instance, in the summer, the wind
usually blows from the south to north. To reduce soil loss, farmers
were advised to plow in an east west direction because it would be
harder for the wind to pick up their soil and blow it away.
Activity c. illustrates how wind blocks help reduce soil loss. Farmers
planted trees to create wind blocks.
In activity d. you see that it is harder to blow away moist soil
compared to soil that is loose and dry.