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<blockquote>''"If you would like to have your heart broken, just come out here, this is the dust-storm country. It is the saddest land I have ever seen."'' -Ernie Pyle, reporter in Kansas</blockquote>

<blockquote>''"If you would like to have your heart broken, just come out here, this is the dust-storm country. It is the saddest land I have ever seen."'' -Ernie Pyle, reporter in Kansas</blockquote>

The Dust Bowl consisted of many dust storms in the prairie lands, particularly [[Oklahoma]], in the United States during the [[Great Depression]]. The drought hit first in the eastern part of the country in 1930. By 1934, it had turned the [[Great Plains]] into a desert.

The Dust Bowl consisted of many dust storms in the prairie lands, particularly [[Oklahoma]], in the United States during the [[Great Depression]]. The drought hit first in the eastern part of the country in 1930. By 1934, it had turned the [[Great Plains]] into a desert.  It reduced farm output by 23% in the early part of 1933.

The Dust Bowl got its name in April 1935, when reporter Robert Geiger wrote, "Three little words achingly familiar on a Western farmer's tongue, rule life in the dust bowl of the continent - if it rains." The term stuck, spreading to radio broadcasts, publications, private letters, and public speeches.  

The Dust Bowl got its name in April 1935, when reporter Robert Geiger wrote, "Three little words achingly familiar on a Western farmer's tongue, rule life in the dust bowl of the continent - if it rains." The term stuck, spreading to radio broadcasts, publications, private letters, and public speeches.  

<blockquote>"In the dust-covered desolation of our No Man's Land here, wearing our shade hats, with handkerchiefs tied over our faces and vaseline in our nostrils, we have been trying to rescue our home from the wind-blown dust which penetrates wherever air can go. It is almost a hopeless task, for there is rarely a day when at some time the dust clouds do not roll over. 'Visibility' approaches zero and everything is covered again with a silt-like deposit which may vary in depth from a film to actual ripples on the kitchen floor."</blockquote>  

<blockquote>"In the dust-covered desolation of our No Man's Land here, wearing our shade hats, with handkerchiefs tied over our faces and vaseline in our nostrils, we have been trying to rescue our home from the wind-blown dust which penetrates wherever air can go. It is almost a hopeless task, for there is rarely a day when at some time the dust clouds do not roll over. 'Visibility' approaches zero and everything is covered again with a silt-like deposit which may vary in depth from a film to actual ripples on the kitchen floor."</blockquote>  

Beginning in 1933, federal conservation programs were created to rehabilitate the Dust Bowl, changing the basic farming methods of the region by seeding areas with grass, rotating crops, and using contour plowing, strip plowing, and planting "shelter belts" of trees to break the wind. The [[Civilian Conservation Corps]] planted tens of millions of trees. Farmers were defensive when outsiders criticized their farming methods. Only when they were paid did they begin to put the new farming techniques into practice. The dollar per acre they earned often meant the difference between being able to stay a bit longer or having to abandon their land. As historian Robert Worster (2004) wrote, "The ultimate meaning of the dust storms of the 1930s was that America as a whole, not just the plains, was badly out of balance with its natural environment. Unbounded optimism about the future, careless disregard of nature's limits and uncertainties, devotion to self-aggrandizement - all these were national as well as regional characteristics."  

Beginning in 1933, federal conservation programs were created to rehabilitate the Dust Bowl, changing the basic farming methods of the region: seeding areas with grass, rotating crops, using contour and strip, and planting "shelter belts" of trees to break the wind. The [[Civilian Conservation Corps]] planted tens of millions of trees. Farmers were defensive when outsiders criticized their farming methods. Only when they were paid did they begin to put the new farming techniques into practice. The dollar per acre they earned often meant the difference between being able to stay a bit longer or having to abandon their land. As historian Robert Worster (2004) wrote, <blockquote>"The ultimate meaning of the dust storms of the 1930s was that America as a whole, not just the plains, was badly out of balance with its natural environment. Unbounded optimism about the future, careless disregard of nature's limits and uncertainties, devotion to self-aggrandizement - all these were national as well as regional characteristics."</blockquote>

==Further reading==

==Further reading==

* Cooper, Michael L. ''Dust to Eat: Drought and Depression in the 1930s'' (2004) [http://www.amazon.com/Dust-Eat-Drought-Depression-1930s/dp/0618154493/ref=pd_bbs_sr_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232316096&sr=8-5 excerpt and text search]

* Cooper, Michael L. ''Dust to Eat: Drought and Depression in the 1930s'' (2004) [http://www.amazon.com/Dust-Eat-Drought-Depression-1930s/dp/0618154493/ref=pd_bbs_sr_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232316096&sr=8-5]

* Egan, Timothy. ''The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl'' (2006), true human interest stories [http://www.amazon.com/Worst-Hard-Time-Survived-American/dp/0618773479/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232316096&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search]

* Egan, Timothy. ''The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl'' (2006) [http://www.amazon.com/Worst-Hard-Time-Survived-American/dp/0618773479/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232316096&sr=8-1 ]

* Worster, Donald. ''Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s'' (2004), standard scholarly history [http://www.amazon.com/Dust-Bowl-Southern-Plains-1930s/dp/0195174887/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232316096&sr=8-2 excerpt and text search]

* Worster, Donald. ''Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s'' (2004), standard scholarly history [http://www.amazon.com/Dust-Bowl-Southern-Plains-1930s/dp/0195174887/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232316096&sr=8-2]

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