period 7
Secondary source“For eight years dust blew on the southern plains. It came in a yellowish-brown haze from the South and in rolling walls of black from the North. The simplest acts of life — breathing, eating a meal, taking a walk — were no longer simple. Children wore dust masks to and from school, women hung wet sheets over windows in a futile attempt to stop the dirt, farmers watched helplessly as their crops blew away”
Citation: "About The Dust Bowl." About The Dust Bowl. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 June 2016. |
Explanation and significance: The Dust Bowl, as this online interpretation states, was a horrible time where people of all ages experienced the wrath of this natural geographic disaster. Children became ill because of the heaps of dust in the air and life was not normal for these young children. Life was not simple anymore. The children’s parents did anything they could to protect each other from harm from this disaster. Farmers were especially affected by the Dust Bowl. The Dust Bowl mainly affected the areas of Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. Agriculture was becoming nothing since the dust ruined many crops, and these effects were felt all around the world which made the depression worse. President Franklin Roosevelt took immediate action to try to help those who were affected by this geographical disaster in the United States by giving $200 million to help farmers who were close to foreclosure through the Emergency Farm Mortgage Act. Right after this act, the Farm Credit Act of 1933 set up local banks for the farmers to retrieve this financial help. Farmers had no control over what happened with their crops and “watched helplessly as their crops blew away” (About the Dust Bowl), and clearly, President Franklin Roosevelt understood what they were going through. Not only did the Dust Bowl destroy crops, but it also destroyed the water supply and created a huge drought. Once again, President Franklin Roosevelt heroically came to the rescue to help Americans in need by providing $525 million in drought relief through the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act. This act also gave 8.5 million people jobs by establishing the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Through the many acts that the president passed, nothing could stop this disaster because soon after establishing the WPA, there was the worst dust blizzard that caused the most damage; it is also known as “Black Sunday”. Though the drought continued even through human conservation efforts such as re-plowing the land (to try to prevent the blowing away of soil by the Dust Bowl’s wind), the environment changed suddenly with lots of rain finally in 1939. America was finally pulled out of a depression with this abundance of rain and with the upcoming of World War II, and the plains of the United States thrived with wheat once again..
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