American Wasteland
How the hopes of a nation’s heartland turned to dust
The horrors of life inside the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression
Even by the first decades of the 20th century, the United States was, by global standards, still a relatively young country; but it had come a long way. Following fairly slow and steady growth through the 18th and early 19th centuries, with the expansion west from the well-established coastal cities and States that were the foundation of the nation, the pioneering spirit and the desire to exploit the country’s vast natural resources drove a rush of interest in opportunity and ownership, especially land.
Fuelled by Government support – the Homestead Act of 1862 gave 162 acres of public land to each new settler for their own use – and the ideals of the founding fathers, vast amounts of natural wilderness in the heart of the growing nation were to be claimed and owned in the name of progress. Following the Civil War there was a marked increase in this expansion westward and people came in ever-increasing numbers, many of them, most importantly, with little or no idea of farming. As new states were born (Oklahoma was not an official state until 1907), long trains of covered wagons gave way
to the modern technology of the railways, and towns and even cities rose out of the plains and the prairies. Those who had made the journey to the mid-west hoping for a better life were not to be disappointed. Open land stretched as far as the eye could see, the land appeared fertile with tall grasses and the weather seemed to give just the right mix of sun and rain. Convinced by the folklore that ‘rain followed the plough’ it seemed a prime location for farming and to grow what was needed – especially wheat and the grazing of cattle for meat – for the ever-increasing numbers of mouths to feed, whilst of course making a good living and profit into the bargain.
By the early decades of the 20th century the USA had developed into a global power, and following its intervention into World War I there was a huge increase in the demand for wheat both at home and abroad. The farmers of the plains of the mid-west answered the call and were not to disappoint. As a result of the huge demand wheat prices rocketed and a good living was to be had for all – farmers, their families, and the banks who were quick to give ready loans to finance the farming explosion.
Nature, however, could not sustain this onslaught. In the haste to settle and succeed, vast swathes of natural grassland was ploughed, then ploughed, and ploughed again, eager to satisfy the appetite of a nation and the rest of the world, hungry for whatever its farmers could produce. Little thought was given to how the land and its precious soil could and should be managed properly and sensitively. And with ingenuity of invention through the introduction of petrol tractors and early combine harvesters the mechanisation of farming methods meant even more acres could be put to the plough in a shorter time as the ferocity of the assault on the land intensified. At first things were plentiful, and the weather on the farmers’ side; but it soon became increasingly apparent that the prairies and plains of the mid-west were not the promised land many had been told or believed. The weather began to be less stable and predictable, with spells of drought that would scorch the earth and the crops, destroying the harvest. In an effort to maintain their planting and their profits more wilderness was cultivated. But this was now a desperate spiral that stripped more and more land of its richness. With the destruction of the natural grass that held the very fabric of the soil together, plus the constant barrage of ploughing, the valuable rich topsoil that was at the very heart of a healthy crop began to break up and by the 1920s its richness and fertility were all but gone. In the eagerness to expand, feed a nation and make a profit, the land had been farmed to death, with terrible consequences. It was nature’s fury that was to have the upper hand, but it was a combination of natural and man-made events that were to shape the entire decade of the 1930s in America.
The Wall Street Crash of 1929 was the start of a chain reaction that was to devastate the heartland of the USA and plunge the entire country into a ‘Great Depression’. In a perfect storm of events, with the destruction in confidence of the stock markets, the high price of wheat that had been the lifeblood of the mid-west farmers now plummeted, destroying lives and livelihoods in a single stroke. At the same time, almost as if an act of revenge by nature for the way the land had been so poorly treated in the name of profit, the rain failed to come. For some areas the drought was to last almost the entire decade. Where there had been thousands upon thousands of acres of healthy valuable wheat, the soil was now barren and dry and the sun baked the earth mercilessly. Vast areas of Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas were, almost overnight, transformed from being a bread basket for the US and the wider world into a desolate desert of dust and despair. The erosion of the topsoil had turned the land to fine powder, and great expanses of wide open country with few trees or hedgerows allowed the winds to gather speed and whip the dust high into the air in huge dense clouds that raced across the plains. The ‘Dirty Thirties’ had begun. Those in the way of these ‘black blizzards’ could do little but seal up their homes as best they could and ride out the storm, but still it seemed to be able to find a way through. Often people would find themselves completely trapped, with an upstairs window the only means of escape. And as the decade progressed nature’s onslaught took on a new momentum. In 1932 the US National Weather Bureau recorded 14 dust storms. The following year this had increased to 38. In 1934 a storm two miles high swept 2,000 miles to the east coast, covering the cities, national monuments and even ships in a fine layer of dust. The worst storms of all have found a place in history as ‘Black Sunday’ when in just one day, in April 1935, an estimated three million tons of soil were lifted high into the atmosphere and swept off the Great Plains, blackening the sky and turning day to night. It was a newspaper report of this awesome event that was to first use the term ‘Dust Bowl’ to describe the stricken states of the mid-west.
“PEOPLE WOULD FIND THEMSELVES COMPLETELY TRAPPED, WITH AN UPSTAIRS WINDOW THE ONLY MEANS OF ESCAPE”
For many, every prospect of farming and making a living was fading fast. In the good times the money had flowed like honey, but now there was no harvest, no profit and no way to repay the mortgages and the loans that had sustained them in the good years. With no means to make a living and pay the bills, for many the obvious choice was to leave. And so began the largest single migration of people the United States had ever seen. Not all left their homes; some estimates place the figure at around 25 per cent of the population, but at between 2.5 and 3 million people this was still a staggering amount of humanity on the move. They packed their trucks and jalopies (cars) with all they could and moved on in search of work; any kind of work for whatever pay they could get. The majority did not travel too far, perhaps to the neighbouring states where they may have had friends or family, and which they hoped carried better prospects than what they had left behind. And not all were farmers. Whole communities were devastated by the drought and the dust, and this included office workers, bankers and store owners; the despair touched everyone who had built their lives around a successful harvest and now all they had achieved was blown away on the wind. Those who stayed desperately tried to plough something from the land, but with little success, and even made matters worse. Those who left found other parts of the country in almost as poor a state as themselves. With the Great Depression unemployment had soared and money was tight. Branded ‘Okies’ by the local populations (although not all came from Oklahoma) the migrants were viewed with disdain and in many areas sympathy was thin on the ground, with people suspicious that outsiders would try and steal jobs and livelihoods when there was little to go round. One former farmer camping with his family on the roadside told local authority agents, “1927 made $7,000 in cotton. 1931 lost everything. 1932 hit the road.”
Something had to be done, and in 1933 a new president brought new hope to help get the midwest states and the entire country back on its feet. The New Deal programme of Franklin D Roosevelt directly tackled the issues of the Great Depression by targeting the core needs of the people. If they had the basics to survive then this was a sound foundation upon which to rebuild the country and the economy. For the farmers of the plains this meant giving them what they had been unable to do themselves – make money from their land and their cattle. Legislation was passed to ensure that farmers were compensated for leaving their land fallow, reducing the surplus of food and driving up prices to a healthier level. Their cattle, weakened by wind, dust and drought, were purchased by the government and slaughtered, with those still fit for human consumption being used to produce food
for needy families. The slaughter of six million pigs was also an attempt to try and combat the poverty that had gripped the nation.
Roosevelt was only too aware of what was at stake and wrote ‘A nation that destroys its soil destroys itself’, and in order to combat any further devastation of the land ordered a huge tree-planting programme stretching all the way from the Canadian border down to Texas. Its effectiveness would not only be as a wind break, but also the roots of this enormous project would once again help to bind the soil together and retain the moisture so vital in bringing the land back to life.
All these measures went some way to bringing relief to those in need, but the dust continued to blow. It is not known how many died during this time. Certainly there were casualties from the merciless destruction of houses – 350 homes were lost in just one storm. But ‘dust pneumonia’ was also a huge hazard. During a storm there was very little defence against breathing in the fine particles other than makeshift wet towels and blankets, and even after the deluge had passed the dust still lingered in the air as a constant barrage on the lungs of people and animals alike. Hundreds were to die from the ‘brown plague’. For some the effect would be almost instant, especially in the old and very young. For others it was a ticking time bomb that would be triggered many years later.
Almost a decade after it had abandoned the farmers, in 1939 the rain returned. So did many, but not all, of those who had taken their chances on the open road. Specialist government departments would now oversee more conservation-based farming methods, with education programmes available for farmers to promote sustainable farm management. There would be some success, but as technology continued to flourish and the population continued to grow the temptation was always there to farm as much from the land as possible. Communities began to rebuild their lives and their businesses. For those choosing not to return they would continue to struggle until another world war ignited the need for labour to satisfy a hungry war machine of manufacturing.
The times of the Dust Bowl are a series of contradictions; the pioneering spirit and the fulfilment of dreams but with little or no thought or care to nature and its delicate balance. An era of enduring determination and inner strength of those who fought and lost against the elements but refused to give in, and an era of inhumanity from those who showed them contempt and treated them as unwelcome intruders.
At the very least it is a lesson to be learned, but it also a warning that should the land not be treated with the respect it deserves then the future could literally crumble to dust.
“THE DESPAIR TOUCHED EVERYONE WHO HAD BUILT THEIR LIVES AROUND A SUCCESSFUL HARVEST AND NOW ALL THEY HAD ACHIEVED WAS BLOWN AWAY ON THE WIND”