Essay 3

Essay 3 is coming along nicely. i want to say that i ACTUALLY THINK I DID WELL ON THIS. but...that never happens. anyways.

Alexis Hill

Dr. Kerr

ENG 101 H-1

October 24, 2010

The Great Dust Bowl

                Prior to the early 1930’s, the Midwest was a farmer’s paradise until 1931 when a decade long drought transformed the area into a dry stretch of land.  The Dust Bowl is thought to be the third worst natural disaster to this day behind Hurricanes Katrina and Galveston (Nguyen).  It is estimated that 300 million tons of soil were removed from the region JUST in May 1934 and spread over large portions of the eastern United States (Wilhite).   The excessively dry environment and extremely high winds during the 1930’s caused distress within the health of the populous, economy , and environment in the Midwest region, known as the Dust Bowl. 

                During the time of the Dust Bowl the most common health problem was dust pneumonia. This form of pneumonia was caused by the inhalation of dust and dirt particles in the air.  The prairie dust that blew across the Plains and Midwest was extremely small with high silicon content, which cause a type of silicosis like in coal miners and everyone was breathing this harmful dust in all day.  John Steinbeck wrote a Pulitzer Prize winning book entitled The Grapes of Wrath that follows a family and their troubles living in the Dust Bowl.  “Houses were shut tight, and cloth wedged around doors and windows, but the dust came in so thinly that it could not be seen in the air, and it settled like pollen on the chairs and tables, on the dishes (Lombardi).” Dust pneumonia usually struck the elderly, infants and children (Bonnifield). One of the initial symptoms of dust pneumonia is coughing; coughing is the body’s natural response to force the dust out of the lungs (Boehlke). Septic shock is an advanced symptom and condition caused when an infection spreads into the blood stream or other parts of the body---causing the body and its organs to eventually shut down (Boehlke). By the mid 1930's, dust pneumonia was rampant across the Midwest and Great Plains. Patients could not keep food down and many would die within days of diagnosis. At one point, children were being given gauze to cover their mouths with, but the gauze would be solidly plugged up with dirt in about an hour (Bonnifield).

                The Dust Bowl was during the time of the Great Depression; these were tough economic times for everyone, especially farmers.  In the early 1930s, many farmers were trying to recover from economic losses suffered during the Great Depression. To compensate for these losses, they increased their crop yields. When the drought hit, farmers could no longer produce enough crops to pay off loans or pay for the bare necessities (20^th Century). A lot of farmers decided to cut their losses and pack up to move to California, The Land of Opportunity.  Residents of states such as Kansas and Oklahoma migrated to California for more opportunities like better farming land and more jobs (Colenso). In The Grapes of Wrath, the family describes what it was like seeing hundreds upon thousands of migrants traveling to California. “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."   Unfortunately, these migrants settled in too rapidly and since the number of migrant workers outnumbered the available jobs, tensions grew between Californians and immigrants over work.  California found itself overwhelmed by up to 7,000 new migrants a month, more migrants than it needed (Ganzel). 

                Of course, the environment was also affected.  The strong winds that came with the drought blew away 480 tons of topsoil per acre, removing an average of about five inches of topsoil from more than 10 million acres. The dust and sand storms degraded soil productivity and damaged air quality (Benjamin).  April 14, 1935 will forever be known as the worst dust storm in history, known as “Black Sunday”.  The day started out sunny and people were relieved to see sunshine after weeks of dust storms. In the mid-afternoon, the temperature dropped and a huge black cloud appeared on the horizon. The cloud approached quickly and with a thunderous roar with winds clocked at 60 MPH (Fleury).

                The excessively dry environment and extremely high winds during the 1930’s caused distress within the health of the populous, economy, and environment in the Midwest region, known as the Dust Bowl.        Though now farming in the Midwest is back to normal, the time of the Dust Bowl will never be forgotten. 

               

WORKS CITED

"20th Century Drought." North American Drought. NOAA Satellite and Information Service. Web. 27 Oct. 2010. <http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/drought/drght_history.html>.

Benjamin, Daniel. "The Dust Bowl Reconsidered :." PERC - The Property and Environment Research Center. 2004. Web. 26 Oct. 2010. <http://www.perc.org/articles/article505.php>.

Boehlke, Julie. "What Are Symptoms Of Dust Pneumonia? | LIVESTRONG.COM."LIVESTRONG.COM. 27 Oct. 2009. Web. 25 Oct. 2010. <http://www.livestrong.com/article/17213-symptoms-dust-pneumonia/>

Bonnifield, Paul. "Dust Pneumonia." Paranorma. Rocky Mountain PBS, 04 Oct. 2009. Web. 22 Oct. 2010. <http://www.rmpbs.org/panorama/index.cfm/entry/574/Dust-pneumonia,-the-brown-plague>.

Colenso, Maria. "What Caused the Dust Bowl." Howstuffworks. Discovery Company, 17 Sept. 2008. Web. 24 Oct. 2010. <http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/dust-bowl-cause1.htm>.

Fleury, Maureen. "Black Sunday Dust Storm." Suite101.com. 28 May 2009. Web. 26 Oct. 2010. http://www.suite101.com/content/black-sunday-dust-storm-on-april-14-1935-a120873.

Ganzel, Bill. "Okies." The Wessels Living History Farm. 2003. Web. 26 Oct. 2010. <http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/water_06.html>.

Lombardi, Esther. "'Grapes of Wrath' Quotes." Books & Literature Classics. Web. 26 Oct. 2010. <http://classiclit.about.com/od/grapesofwrathsteinbeck/a/aa_grapesquotes.htm>.

Nguyen, Tuan C. "The 10 Worst U.S Natural Disasters." LiveScience. Web. 26 Oct. 2010. <http://www.livescience.com/environment/top-10-natural-disasters-1.html>.

Wilhite, Donald. "Dust Bowl." Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. Web. 26 Oct. 2010. <http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/D/DU011.html>.