Living in the Dust Bowl

The settlement of the Great Plains states in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century provided the growing nation with agricultural riches and a bustling farm economy, but the rapid development of previously arid lands into massive wheat fields had a detrimental effect upon the land itself. Where buffalo grass had previously provided nutrients and kept soil anchored to the ground, the newly plowed wheat fields left the soil exposed to the elements. In the summer of 1934, with conditions exacerbated by a long drought, winds began to whip the sunbaked soil into thick, dark, low-riding clouds of dust. In April, Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, and New Mexico were all hit with a devastating dust storm. The dust clouds assaulted everything, destroying crops, killing livestock, and suffocating settlers. It is estimated that in April and May of 1934, more than 650,000,000 tons of topsoil were blown off the plains. In this selection, Ann Marie Low, a young woman whose family farm was in North Dakota, writes in her diary about the dust storm. When we read that Low had to wash the washing machine before she could wash clothes, we begin to appreciate the extraordinary difficulties faced by those trying to survive the storm.