:Dust Bowl

File:Map of states and counties affected by the Dust Bowl, sourced from US federal government dept. (NRCS SSRA-RAD).svg affected by the Dust Bowl between 1935 and 1938, originally prepared by the Soil Conservation Service. The most severely affected counties during this period are colored {{Color sample|#d88373|description=dark red}}.]]

File:Dust storm approaching Stratford, Texas.jpg, in 1935.]]

The Dust Bowl area lies principally west of the 100th meridian on the High Plains, characterized by plains that vary from rolling in the north to flat in the Llano Estacado. Elevation ranges from {{cvt|2500|ft|m}} in the east to {{cvt|6000|ft|m}} at the base of the Rocky Mountains. The area is semiarid, receiving less than {{cvt|20|in|mm}} of rain annually; this rainfall supports the shortgrass prairie biome originally present in the area. The region is also prone to extended drought, alternating with unusual wetness of equivalent duration.{{cite web |date=February 2000 |url=http://ccc.atmos.colostate.edu/pdfs/ahistoryofdrought.pdf |title=A History of Drought in Colorado: lessons learned and what lies ahead |publisher=Colorado Water Resources Research Institute |access-date=December 6, 2007 |archive-date=August 21, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110821222601/http://ccc.atmos.colostate.edu/pdfs/ahistoryofdrought.pdf |url-status=live }} During wet years, the rich soil provides bountiful agricultural output, but crops fail during dry years. The region is also subject to high winds.{{cite web |date=August 27, 1936 |url=http://newdeal.feri.org/hopkins/hop27.htm |title=A Report of the Great Plains Area Drought Committee |publisher=Hopkins Papers, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library |access-date=December 6, 2007 |archive-date=November 11, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071111012245/http://newdeal.feri.org/hopkins/hop27.htm |url-status=live }} During early European and American exploration of the Great Plains, this region was thought unsuitable for European-style agriculture; explorers called it the Great American Desert. The lack of surface water and timber made the region less attractive than other areas for pioneer settlement and agriculture.

The federal government encouraged settlement and development of the Plains for agriculture via the Homestead Act of 1862, offering settlers "quarter section" {{cvt|160|acre|adj=on}} plots. With the end of the Civil War in 1865 and the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in 1869, waves of new migrants and immigrants reached the Great Plains and greatly increased the acreage under cultivation.{{Cite web |last=Popper |first=Deborah Epstein |last2=Popper |first2=Frank J. |date=December 1987 |title=The Great Plains: from dust to dust |url=http://www.planning.org/25anniversary/planning/1987dec.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071006015832/http://www.planning.org/25anniversary/planning/1987dec.htm |archive-date=October 6, 2007 |access-date=December 6, 2007 |publisher=Planning Magazine}}{{cite book |year=1995 |url=http://www.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/uu14re/uu14re00.htm |title=Regions at Risk: a comparison of threatened environments |publisher=United Nations University Press |access-date=December 6, 2007 |archive-date=December 16, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071216233621/http://www.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/uu14re/uu14re00.htm |url-status=live }} An unusually wet period in the Great Plains mistakenly led settlers and the federal government to believe that "rain follows the plow" (a popular phrase among real estate promoters) and that the region's climate had permanently changed.{{cite book |year=2006 |url=http://drought.unl.edu/DroughtBasics/DustBowl/DroughtintheDustBowlYears.aspx |title=Drought in the Dust Bowl Years |publisher=National Drought Mitigation Center |location=US |access-date=December 6, 2007 |archive-date=January 24, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160124105928/http://drought.unl.edu/DroughtBasics/DustBowl/DroughtintheDustBowlYears.aspx |url-status=live }} While initial agricultural endeavors were primarily cattle ranching, the harsh winters' adverse effect on the cattle, beginning in 1886, a short drought in 1890, and general overgrazing, led many landowners to increase the amount of land under cultivation.

Recognizing the challenge of cultivating marginal arid land, the U.S. government expanded on the {{cvt|160|acre}} offered under the Homestead Act, granting {{cvt|640|acre}} to homesteaders in western Nebraska under the Kinkaid Act (1904) and {{cvt|320|acres}} elsewhere in the Great Plains under the Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909. Waves of European settlers arrived in the plains at the beginning of the 20th century. A return of unusually wet weather seemingly confirmed a previously held opinion that the "formerly" semiarid area could support large-scale agriculture. At the same time, technological improvements such as mechanized plowing and mechanized harvesting made it possible to operate larger properties without increasing labor costs.

With insufficient understanding of the ecology of the plains, farmers had conducted extensive deep plowing of the Great Plains' virgin topsoil during the previous decade; this displaced the native, deep-rooted grasses that normally trapped soil and moisture even during periods of drought and high winds. The rapid mechanization of farm equipment, especially small gasoline tractors, and widespread use of the combine harvester contributed to farmers' decisions to convert arid grassland (much of which received no more than {{convert|10|in|mm}} of precipitation per year) to cultivated cropland.{{cite web |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/dustbowl-drought/ |title=The American Experience: Drought |publisher=PBS |access-date=March 15, 2015 |archive-date=March 10, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150310174144/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/dustbowl-drought/ |url-status=live }} During the drought of the 1930s, the unanchored soil turned to dust, which prevailing winds blew away in huge clouds that sometimes blackened the sky. These choking billows of dust{{snd}}named "black blizzards" or "black rollers"{{snd}}traveled cross-country, reaching as far as the East Coast and striking such cities as New York City and Washington, D.C. On the plains, they often reduced visibility to {{convert|3|ft|m|0|spell=in}} or less. Associated Press reporter Robert E. Geiger happened to be in Boise City, Oklahoma, to witness the "Black Sunday" black blizzards of April 14, 1935; Edward Stanley, the Kansas City news editor of the Associated Press, coined the term "Dust Bowl" while rewriting Geiger's news story.{{cite web |url=http://www.srh.noaa.gov/oun/?n=blacksunday |title=The Black Sunday Dust Storm of 14 April 1935 |publisher=National Weather Service |location=Norman, Oklahoma |date=August 24, 2010 |access-date=November 23, 2012 |archive-date=November 25, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121125235449/http://www.srh.noaa.gov/oun/?n=blacksunday |url-status=live }}{{cite book |last=Mencken |first=H. L. |title=The American Language |year=1979 |publisher=Alfred A. Knopf |location=New York |isbn=978-0-394-40075-4 |edition=One-Volume Abridged |editor=Raven I. McDavid Jr. |page=206}}

The term "the Dust Bowl" originally referred to the geographical area affected by the dust, but today it usually refers to the event itself (the term "Dirty Thirties" is also sometimes used). The drought and erosion of the Dust Bowl affected {{convert|100|e6acre|km2|abbr=unit}} that centered on the Texas Panhandle and Oklahoma Panhandle and touched adjacent sections of New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas.{{cite book |last=Hakim |first=Joy |title=A History of Us: War, Peace and all that Jazz |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1995 |location=New York |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kwke_hhx8Z8C&pg=PP1 |isbn=978-0-19-509514-2 |access-date=December 22, 2018 |archive-date=April 29, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210429050637/https://books.google.com/books?id=kwke_hhx8Z8C&pg=PP1 |url-status=live }}{{Page needed|date=February 2011}} The Dust Bowl forced tens of thousands of poverty-stricken families, who were unable to pay mortgages or grow crops, to abandon their farms, and losses reached $25 million per day by 1936 (equivalent to ${{inflation|US|25|1936|r=-1}} million in {{Inflation/year|US}}).{{Inflation-fn|US}}{{Cite AV media |title=Bust: America – The Story of Us |year=2010 |oclc=783245601 |publisher=A&E Television Networks}} Many of these families, often called "Okies" because many of them came from Oklahoma, migrated to California and other states to find that the Great Depression had rendered economic conditions there little better than those they had left.

The combined effects of World War I and the disruption of the Russian Revolution, which decreased the supply of wheat and other commodity crops, increased agricultural prices; this demand encouraged farmers to dramatically increase cultivation. For example, in the Llano Estacado of eastern New Mexico and northwestern Texas, the area of farmland doubled between 1900 and 1920, then tripled between 1925 and 1930. The agricultural methods farmers favored during this period created the conditions for large-scale erosion under certain environmental conditions. The widespread conversion of the land by deep plowing and other soil preparation methods to enable agriculture eliminated the native grasses that held the soil in place and helped retain moisture during dry periods. Furthermore, cotton farmers left fields bare during the winter, when winds in the High Plains are highest, and burned the stubble as a means to control weeds before planting, thereby depriving the soil of organic nutrients and surface vegetation.

File:Dust storm in Spearman,Texas, Wea01422.jpg; Spearman, Texas, April 14, 1935]]

File:Dust bowl, Texas Panhandle, TX fsa.8b27276 edit.jpg

File:U.S. Weather Bureau Surface Analysis at 7-00 am CST on April 15, 1935.jpg

After fairly favorable climatic conditions in the 1920s with good rainfall and relatively moderate winters,{{cite web |url=http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/us/105/00/tavg/6/03/1895-2014?base_prd=true&firstbaseyear=1896&lastbaseyear=1967&trend=true&trend_base=10&firsttrendyear=1968&lasttrendyear=2014&filter=true&filterType=binomial |title=Northern Rockies and Plains Average Temperature – October to March |publisher=National Climatic Data Center |access-date=September 17, 2014 |archive-date=October 6, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006155918/http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/us/105/00/tavg/6/03/1895-2014?base_prd=true&firstbaseyear=1896&lastbaseyear=1967&trend=true&trend_base=10&firsttrendyear=1968&lasttrendyear=2014&filter=true&filterType=binomial |url-status=live }} which permitted increased settlement and cultivation in the Great Plains, the region entered an unusually dry era in the summer of 1930.{{cite web |url=http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/us/105/00/pcp/12/12/1895-2013?base_prd=true&firstbaseyear=1895&lastbaseyear=1966&trend=true&trend_base=10&firsttrendyear=1967&lasttrendyear=2013&filter=true&filterType=binomial |title=Northern Rockies and Plains Precipitation, 1895–2013 |publisher=National Climatic Data Center |access-date=September 17, 2014 |archive-date=October 6, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006082942/http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/us/105/00/pcp/12/12/1895-2013?base_prd=true&firstbaseyear=1895&lastbaseyear=1966&trend=true&trend_base=10&firsttrendyear=1967&lasttrendyear=2013&filter=true&filterType=binomial |url-status=live }} During the next decade, the northern plains suffered four of their seven driest calendar years since 1895, Kansas four of its 12 driest,{{cite web |url=http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/us/14/00/pcp/12/12/1895-2013?base_prd=true&firstbaseyear=1895&lastbaseyear=1966&trend=true&trend_base=10&firsttrendyear=1967&lasttrendyear=2013&filter=true&filterType=binomial |title=Kansas Precipitation 1895 to 2013 |publisher=National Climatic Data Center |access-date=September 17, 2014 |archive-date=October 6, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006171009/http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/us/14/00/pcp/12/12/1895-2013?base_prd=true&firstbaseyear=1895&lastbaseyear=1966&trend=true&trend_base=10&firsttrendyear=1967&lasttrendyear=2013&filter=true&filterType=binomial |url-status=live }} and the entire region south to West Texas{{cite web |url=http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/us/41/01/pcp/12/12/1895-2013?base_prd=true&firstbaseyear=1895&lastbaseyear=1966&trend=true&trend_base=10&firsttrendyear=1967&lasttrendyear=2013&filter=true&filterType=binomial |title=Texas Climate Division 1 (High Plains): Precipitation 1895–2013 |publisher=National Climatic Data Center |access-date=September 17, 2014 |archive-date=October 6, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006075024/http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/us/41/01/pcp/12/12/1895-2013?base_prd=true&firstbaseyear=1895&lastbaseyear=1966&trend=true&trend_base=10&firsttrendyear=1967&lasttrendyear=2013&filter=true&filterType=binomial |url-status=live }} lacked any period of above-normal rainfall until record rains hit in 1941.{{cite web |url=https://journals.ametsoc.org/downloadpdf/journals/mwre/69/12/1520-0493_1941_069_0360_twoitu_2_0_co_2.pdf |title=The Weather of 1941 in the United States |publisher=National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration |access-date=September 14, 2023}} When severe drought struck the Great Plains region in the 1930s, it resulted in erosion and loss of topsoil because of farming practices at the time. The drought dried the topsoil and over time it became friable, reduced to a powdery consistency in some places. Without indigenous grasses in place, the plains' high winds picked up the topsoil and created massive dust storms.{{Cite book |url=https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/838 |title=Areas of Intense Drought Distress, 1930–1936 |author1=Cronin, Francis D |author2=Beers, Howard W |work=Research Bulletin |date=January 1937 |pages=1–23 |publisher=U.S. Works Progress Administration / Federal Reserve Archival System for Economic Research (FRASER) |access-date=October 15, 2014 |format=PDF |series=Research Bulletin (United States. Works Progress Administration. Division of Social Research) |archive-date=August 10, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180810205544/https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/838 |url-status=live }} The persistent dry weather caused crops to fail, leaving the plowed fields exposed to wind erosion. The Great Plains' fine soil eroded easily and was carried east by strong continental winds.

The first recorded dust storm occurred on September 14, 1930. It was seen more as a meteorological anomaly at the time as it was unlike anything else ever recorded. Unlike a sand storm, the cloud was black or gray (not beige or red) and rolled across the ground. Inside, visibility dropped to the point where people couldn't see their hand in front of their face. It also generated a tremendous amount of static electricity, enough to short a car or knock someone out if they shook someone else's hand.{{Sfn|Egan|2006|p=88}}

On November 11, 1933, a very strong dust storm stripped topsoil from desiccated South Dakota farmlands in one of a series of severe dust storms that year. Beginning on May 9, 1934, a strong, two-day dust storm removed massive amounts of Great Plains topsoil in one of the worst such storms of the Dust Bowl.{{cite journal |url=https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/834 |title=The Drought of 1934 |first=Philip G. |last=Murphy |journal=A Report of the Federal Government's Assistance to Agriculture |date=July 15, 1935 |publisher=U.S. Drought Coordinating Committee / Federal Reserve Archival System for Economic Research (FRASER) |access-date=October 15, 2014 |format=PDF |archive-date=August 10, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180810204955/https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/834 |url-status=live }} The dust clouds blew all the way to Chicago, where they deposited {{convert|12|e6lb|t|abbr=off}} of dust.{{cite web |title=Surviving the Dust Bowl |website=PBS |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/transcript/dustbowl-transcript/ |year=1998 |access-date=September 19, 2011 |archive-date=February 18, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170218045709/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/transcript/dustbowl-transcript/ |url-status=dead}} Two days later, the same storm reached cities to the east, such as Cleveland, Buffalo, Boston, New York City, and Washington, D.C.Stock, Catherine McNicol (1992). Main Street in Crisis: The Great Depression and the Old Middle Class on the Northern Plains, p. 24. University of North Carolina Press. {{ISBN|0-8078-4689-9}}. Monuments like the Statue of Liberty and the United States Capitol were blotted out. Dust worked its way into even the most sealed homes, leaving a coating on food, skin, and furniture.{{Cite web |date=2023-04-24 |title=Dust Bowl: Causes, Definition & Years |url=https://www.history.com/topics/great-depression/dust-bowl |access-date=2024-01-23 |website=HISTORY |language=en}} That winter (1934–35), red snow fell on New England.

On April 14, 1935, known as "Black Sunday", the day started out clear and warm, with temperatures in the 80's and wind completely still, causing many people to let down their guard. However, a diving cold front from Canada kicked up mountains of dust in the turbulent air in the Dakotas and plowed south across the Great Plains at 60 mph.{{Cite web |last=US Department of Commerce |first=NOAA |title=The Black Sunday Dust Storm of April 14, 1935 |url=https://www.weather.gov/oun/events-19350414 |access-date=2025-01-21 |website=www.weather.gov |language=EN-US}} Before the line, it would still be very still with the only sign of the advancing storm being the snapping of static electricity and the screeching of flocks of birds and rabbits streaming south. The storm caught many people off guard as unlike every other storm, the winds didn't pick up until the leading edge arrived. Once inside, the temperature plummeted by 30 degrees and the winds immediately increased to 60 mph.{{Sfn|Egan|2006|p=204-206}} The dust fell straight down instead of sideways like the others and was also so dense that there was practically no visibility and one couldn't even light a lamp as there wasn't enough oxygen in the storm to keep it going.{{Sfn|Egan|2006|p=208-210}} Denver-based Associated Press reporter Robert E. Geiger happened to be in Boise City, Oklahoma, that day. His story about Black Sunday marked the first appearance of the term Dust Bowl;{{cite news |last1=Geiger |first1=Robert |title=If It Rains ... |url=https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ndnp/dlc/batch_dlc_1freud_ver01/data/sn83045462/0028060141A/1935041501/0214.pdf |access-date=6 December 2024 |work=The Evening Star |agency=Associated Press |issue=33,221 |publisher=W.D. Wallach & Hope |date=April 15, 1935 |location=Washington, D.C. |page=2 cols. 4–5}} it was coined by Edward Stanley, Kansas City news editor of the Associated Press, while rewriting Geiger's news story.

{{blockquote|Spearman and Hansford County have been literaly [sic] in a cloud of dust for the past week. Ever since Friday of last week, there hasn't been a day pass but what the county was beseieged [sic] with a blast of wind and dirt. On rare occasions when the wind did subside for a period of hours, the air has been so filled with dust that the town appeared to be overhung by a fog cloud. Because of this long {{sic|seige|hide=y}} of dust and every building being filled with it, the air has become stifling to breathe and many people have developed sore throats and dust colds as a result.|Spearman Reporter|March 21, 1935{{cite news |last=Miller |first=Bill |date=March 21, 1935 |title=Nearly week siege of dust storm in county |work=Spearman Reporter |location=Spearman, Texas |hdl=10605/99636 |url=https://collections2.swco.ttu.edu/bitstream/handle/20.500.12255/122974/Spearman_1935_03_21.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y}}}}

Much of the farmland was eroded in the aftermath of the Dust Bowl. In 1941, a Kansas agricultural experiment station released a bulletin that suggested reestablishing native grasses by the "hay method". Developed in 1937 to speed up the process and increase returns from pasture, the "hay method" was originally supposed to occur in Kansas naturally over 25–40 years.

After much data analysis, the causal mechanism for the droughts can be linked to ocean temperature anomalies. Specifically, Atlantic Ocean sea surface temperatures appear to have had an indirect effect on the general atmospheric circulation, while Pacific sea surface temperatures seem to have had the most direct influence.{{Cite journal |last1=Schubert |first1=Siegfried D. |last2=Suarez |first2=Max J. |last3=Pegion |first3=Philip J. |last4=Koster |first4=Randal D. |last5=Bacmeister |first5=Julio T. |date=2004-03-19 |title=On the Cause of the 1930s Dust Bowl |url=https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1095048 |journal=Science |language=en |volume=303 |issue=5665 |pages=1855–1859 |doi=10.1126/science.1095048 |issn=0036-8075 |pmid=15031502 |bibcode=2004Sci...303.1855S |s2cid=36152330 |access-date=June 6, 2021 |archive-date=June 6, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210606103520/https://science.sciencemag.org/content/303/5665/1855 |url-status=live }}{{Cite journal |last1=Seager |first1=Richard |last2=Kushnir |first2=Yochanan |last3=Ting |first3=Mingfang |last4=Cane |first4=Mark |last5=Naik |first5=Naomi |last6=Miller |first6=Jennifer |date=2008-07-01 |title=Would Advance Knowledge of 1930s SSTs Have Allowed Prediction of the Dust Bowl Drought? |journal=Journal of Climate |language=EN |volume=21 |issue=13 |pages=3261–3281 |doi=10.1175/2007JCLI2134.1 |bibcode=2008JCli...21.3261S |issn=0894-8755 |doi-access=free }}{{Cite journal |title=What we learned from the Dust Bowl: lessons in science, policy, and adaptation |journal=Population and Environment |date=June 2014 |volume=35 |issue=4 |pages=417–440 |first1=Robert A |last1=McLeman |first2=Juliette |last2=Dupre |first3=Lea |last3=Berrang Ford |first4=James |last4=Ford |first5=Konrad |last5=Gajewski |first6=Gregory |last6=Marchildon |doi=10.1007/s11111-013-0190-z |pmid=24829518 |pmc=4015056|bibcode=2014PopEn..35..417M }}

File:Dust Bowl - Dallas, South Dakota 1936.jpg, May 1936]]

This catastrophe intensified the economic impact of the Great Depression in the region.

In 1935, many families were forced to leave their farms and travel to other areas seeking work because of the drought, which had already lasted four years.A Cultural History of the United States – The 1930s. San Diego, California: Lucent Books, Inc., 1999, p. 39. The abandonment of homesteads and financial ruin resulting from catastrophic topsoil loss led to widespread hunger and poverty.{{Cite AV media |last1=Schama |first1=Simon |last2=Hobkinson |first2=Sam |title=American Plenty |oclc=884893188 |publisher=BBC |year=2008}} Dust Bowl conditions fomented an exodus of the displaced from the Texas Panhandle, Oklahoma Panhandle, and the surrounding Great Plains to adjacent regions. More than 500,000 Americans were left homeless. More than 350 houses had to be torn down after one storm alone.{{cite web |title=First Measured Century: Interview:James Gregory |url=https://www.pbs.org/fmc/interviews/gregory.htm |access-date=March 11, 2007 |publisher=PBS |archive-date=July 18, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180718110146/https://www.pbs.org/fmc/interviews/gregory.htm |url-status=live }} The severe drought and dust storms left many homeless; others had their mortgages foreclosed by banks, or felt they had no choice but to abandon their farms in search of work.Babb, Sanora, Dorothy Babb, and Douglas Wixson. On the Dirty Plate Trail. Edited by Douglas Wixson. Autin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 2007, p. 20. Many Americans migrated west, looking for work. Parents packed up "jalopies" with their families and a few personal belongings and headed west.A Cultural History (1999), p. 19 Some residents of the Plains, especially Kansas and Oklahoma, fell ill and died of dust pneumonia or malnutrition.

File:Broke, baby sick, and car trouble! - Dorothea Langes photo of a Missouri family of five in the vicinity of Tracy, California.jpg's 1937 photo of a Missouri migrant family's jalopy stuck near Tracy, California.{{Cite book |last=Fender |first=Stephen |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fISoAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA143 |title=Nature, Class, and New Deal Literature: The Country Poor in the Great Depression |publisher=Routledge |year=2011 |isbn=9781136632280 |page=143 |access-date=September 23, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210819065854/https://books.google.com/books?id=fISoAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA143 |archive-date=August 19, 2021 |url-status=live}}]]

Between 1930 and 1940, about 3.5 million people moved out of the Plains states.{{cite book|last=Worster|first=Donald|url=https://archive.org/details/dustbowl00dona|title=Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1979|page=[https://archive.org/details/dustbowl00dona/page/49 49]|url-access=registration}} In just over a year, over 86,000 people migrated to California. This number is more than the number of migrants to that area during the 1849 gold rush.Worster, Donald. Dust Bowl – The Southern Plains in the 1930s, New York: Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 50 Migrants abandoned farms in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, Colorado, and New Mexico, but were often generally called "Okies", "Arkies", or "Texies".{{cite web|title=First Measured Century: Interview:James Gregory|url=https://www.pbs.org/fmc/interviews/gregory.htm|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180718110146/https://www.pbs.org/fmc/interviews/gregory.htm|archive-date=July 18, 2018|access-date=March 11, 2007|publisher=PBS}} Terms such as "Okies" and "Arkies" came to be standard in the 1930s for those who had lost everything and were struggling the most during the Great Depression.Worster (2004), Dust Bowl, p. 45,

File:On Arizona Highway 87, south of Chandler. Maricopa County, Arizona. Children in a democracy. A migra . . . - NARA - 522528.jpg

But not all migrants traveled long distances; most participated in internal state migration, moving from counties that the Dust Bowl badly impacted to other, less affected counties.{{Cite journal|last1=Long|first1=Jason|last2=Siu|first2=Henry|date=2018|title=Refugees from Dust and Shrinking Land: Tracking the Dust Bowl Migrants|journal=The Journal of Economic History|language=en|volume=78|issue=4|pages=1001–1033|doi=10.1017/S0022050718000591|s2cid=38804642|issn=0022-0507|doi-access=free}} So many families left their farms and were on the move that the proportion of migrants and residents was nearly equal in the Great Plains states.

An examination of Census Bureau statistics and other records, and a 1939 survey of occupation by the Bureau of Agricultural Economics of about 116,000 families who arrived in California in the 1930s, showed that only 43% of Southwesterners were doing farm work immediately before they migrated. Nearly a third of all migrants were professional or white-collar workers.Gregory, N. James. (1991) American Exodus: The Dust Bowl Migration and Okie Culture in California. Oxford University Press. Some farmers had to take on unskilled labor when they moved; leaving the farming sector commonly led to greater social mobility as there was a far greater likelihood that migrant farmers would later go into semi-skilled or high-skilled fields that paid better. Non-farmers experienced more downward occupational moves than farmers, but in most cases they were not significant enough to bring them into poverty, because high-skilled migrants were most likely to experience a downward shift into semi-skilled work. While semi-skilled work did not pay as well as high-skilled work, most of these workers were not impoverished. For the most part, by the end of the Dust Bowl the migrants generally were better off than those who chose to stay behind.

After the Great Depression ended, some migrants moved back to their original states. Many others remained where they had resettled. About one-eighth of California's population is of Okie heritage.Babb, et al. (2007), On the Dirty Plate Trail, p. 13

Agricultural land and revenue boomed during World War I, but fell during the Great Depression and the 1930s.{{cite journal|last=Hornbeck|first=Richard|year=2012|title=The Enduring Impact of the American Dust Bowl: Short and Long-run Adjustments to Environmental Catastrophe|url=http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:11303325|url-status=live|journal=American Economic Review|volume=102|issue=4|pages=1477–1507|doi=10.1257/aer.102.4.1477|s2cid=6257886 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210819065858/https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/11303325|archive-date=August 19, 2021|access-date=November 9, 2018}}{{verify source|date=March 2016}} The agricultural land most affected by the Dust Bowl was {{convert|16|e6acre|e6ha|abbr=off}} of land in the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles. These 20 counties that the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Soil Conservation Service identified as the worst wind-eroded region were home to the majority of the Great Plains migrants during the Dust Bowl.

While migration from and between the Southern Great Plain States was greater than migration in other regions in the 1930s, the numbers of migrants from these areas had only slightly increased from the 1920s. The Dust Bowl and Great Depression thus did not trigger a mass exodus of southern migrants, but simply encouraged these migrants to keep moving where in other areas the Great Depression limited mobility due to economic issues, decreasing migration. While the population of the Great Plains did fall during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression, the drop was not caused by extreme numbers of migrants leaving the Great Plains but by of a lack of migrants moving from outside the Great Plains into the region.

File:Resettlement Administration Poster Jansen.jpg

Government's greatly expanded participation in land management and soil conservation was an important result of the disaster. Different groups took many different approaches to responding to the disaster. To identify areas that needed attention, groups such as the Soil Conservation Service generated detailed soil maps and took photos of the land from the sky. To create shelterbelts to reduce soil erosion, groups such as the United States Forest Service's Prairie States Forestry Project planted trees on private lands. Groups like the Resettlement Administration, which later became the Farm Security Administration, encouraged small farm owners to resettle on other lands if they lived in drier parts of the Plains.

During President Franklin D. Roosevelt's first 100 days in office in 1933, his administration quickly initiated programs to conserve soil and restore the nation's ecological balance. Interior Secretary Harold L. Ickes established the Soil Erosion Service in August 1933 under Hugh Hammond Bennett. In 1935, it was transferred and reorganized under the Department of Agriculture and renamed the Soil Conservation Service. It is now known as the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS).Steiner, Frederick (2008). The Living Landscape, Second Edition: An Ecological Approach to Landscape Planning, p. 188. Island Press. {{ISBN|1-59726-396-6}}.

As part of New Deal programs, Congress passed the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act in 1936, requiring landowners to share the allocated government subsidies with the laborers who worked on their farms. Under the law, "benefit payments were continued as measures for production control and income support, but they were now financed by direct Congressional appropriations and justified as soil conservation measures. The Act shifted the parity goal from price equality of agricultural commodities and the articles that farmers buy to income equality of farm and non-farm population."Rau, Allan. Agricultural Policy and Trade Liberalization in the United States, 1934–1956; a Study of Conflicting Policies. Genève: E. Droz, 1957. p. 81. Thus, the parity goal was to re-create the ratio between the purchasing power of the net income per person on farms from agriculture and that of the income of persons not on farms that prevailed during 1909–1914.

To stabilize prices, the government paid farmers and ordered more than six million pigs to be slaughtered as part of the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA). It paid to have the meat packed and distributed to the poor and hungry. The Federal Surplus Relief Corporation (FSRC) was established to regulate crop and other surpluses. In a May 14, 1935, address to the AAA, Roosevelt said:

Let me make one other point clear for the benefit of the millions in cities who have to buy meats. Last year the Nation suffered a drought of unparalleled intensity. If there had been no Government program, if the old order had obtained in 1933 and 1934, that drought on the cattle ranges of America and in the corn belt would have resulted in the marketing of thin cattle, immature hogs and the death of these animals on the range and on the farm, and if the old order had been in effect those years, we would have had a vastly greater shortage than we face today. Our program{{snd}}we can prove it{{snd}}saved the lives of millions of head of livestock. They are still on the range, and other millions of heads are today canned and ready for this country to eat."Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: F.D. Roosevelt, 1935, Volume 4" page 178, Best Books, 1938

The FSRC diverted agricultural commodities to relief organizations. Apples, beans, canned beef, flour and pork products were distributed through local relief channels. Cotton goods were later included, to clothe needy.{{Cite web |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/dust-bowl-surviving-dust-bowl/ |title=Timeline: The Dust Bowl | American Experience | PBS |website=www.pbs.org |access-date=October 4, 2020 |archive-date=October 8, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201008161016/https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/dust-bowl-surviving-dust-bowl/ |url-status=live }}

In 1935, the federal government formed a Drought Relief Service (DRS) to coordinate relief activities. The DRS bought cattle in counties that were designated emergency areas for $14 to $20 a head. Animals determined unfit for human consumption were killed; at the beginning of the program, more than 50% were so designated in emergency areas. The DRS assigned the remaining cattle to the Federal Surplus Relief Corporation (FSRC) to be used in food distribution to families nationwide. Although it was difficult for farmers to give up their herds, the cattle slaughter program helped many of them avoid bankruptcy. "The government cattle buying program was a blessing to many farmers, as they could not afford to keep their cattle, and the government paid a better price than they could obtain in local markets."Monthly Catalog, United States Public Documents, By United States Superintendent of Documents, United States Government Printing Office, Published by the G.P.O., 1938

Roosevelt ordered the Civilian Conservation Corps to plant the Great Plains Shelterbelt, a huge belt of more than 200 million trees from Canada to Abilene, Texas, to break the wind, hold water in the soil, and hold the soil in place. The administration also began to educate farmers on soil conservation and anti-erosion techniques, including crop rotation, strip farming, contour plowing, and terracing.{{cite book |title=Texas |author=Federal Writers' Project |location=Writers' Program (Tex.) |publisher=Writers' Program Texas |page=16}}{{cite book |title=Chronicles of Oklahoma |first=James Shannon |last=Buchanan |publisher=Oklahoma Historical Society |page=224}} In 1937, the federal government began an aggressive campaign to encourage Dust Bowl farmers to adopt planting and plowing methods that conserved the soil. The government paid reluctant farmers a dollar an acre ({{Inflation|US|1|1937|fmt=eq}}) to use the new methods. By 1938, the massive conservation effort had reduced the amount of blowing soil by 65%. The land still failed to yield a decent living. In the fall of 1939, after nearly a decade of dirt and dust, the drought ended when regular rainfall finally returned to the region. The government still encouraged continuing the use of conservation methods to protect the Plains' soil and ecology.

At the end of the drought, the programs implemented during the tough times helped sustain a friendly relationship between farmers and the federal government.A Cultural History (1999), p.45.

The President's Drought Committee issued a report in 1935 covering the government's assistance to agriculture during 1934 through mid-1935: it discussed conditions, measures of relief, organization, finances, operations, and results of the government's assistance.United States. Agricultural Adjustment Administration and Murphy, Philip G., (1935), [https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/scribd/?title_id=834&filepath=/docs/publications/books/drought_1934_aaa.pdf Drought of 1934: The Federal Government's Assistance to Agriculture] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160603012850/https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/scribd/?title_id=834&filepath=%2Fdocs%2Fpublications%2Fbooks%2Fdrought_1934_aaa.pdf |date=June 3, 2016 }}". Accessed October 15, 2014. Numerous exhibits are included in this report.

In many regions, more than 75% of the topsoil was blown away by the end of the 1930s. Land degradation varied widely. Aside from the short-term economic consequences of erosion, the Dust Bowl had severe long-term economic consequences.

By 1940, counties that had experienced the most erosion had a greater decline in agricultural land values. The per-acre value of farmland declined by 28% in high-erosion counties and 17% in medium-erosion counties, relative to land value changes in low-erosion counties.{{cite journal |last=Hornbeck |first=Richard |title=The Enduring Impact of the American Dust Bowl: Short and Long-run Adjustments to Environmental Catastrophe |journal=American Economic Review |year=2012 |volume=102 |issue=4 |pages=1477–1507 |doi=10.1257/aer.102.4.1477 |s2cid=6257886 |url=http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:11303325 |access-date=November 9, 2018 |archive-date=August 19, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210819065858/https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/11303325 |url-status=live }}{{rp|3}} Even over the long term, the land's agricultural value often failed to return to pre-Dust Bowl levels. In highly eroded areas, less than 25% of the original agricultural losses were recovered. The economy adjusted predominantly through large relative population declines in more-eroded counties, both during the 1930s and through the 1950s.{{rp|1500}}

The economic effects persisted in part because of farmers' failure to switch to more appropriate crops for highly eroded areas. Because the amount of topsoil had been reduced, it would have been more productive to shift from crops and wheat to animals and hay. During the Depression and through at least the 1950s, there was limited relative adjustment of farmland away from activities that became less productive in more-eroded counties.

Some of the failure to shift to more productive agricultural products may be related to ignorance about the benefits of changing land use. A second explanation is a lack of availability of credit, caused by the high rate of failure of banks in the Plains states. Because banks failed in the Dust Bowl region at a higher rate than elsewhere, farmers could not get the credit they needed to obtain capital to shift crop production.{{Cite journal |last1=Landon-Lane |first1=John |first2=Hugh |last2=Rockoff |first3=Richard |last3=Steckel |title=Droughts, Floods, and Financial Distress in the United States |journal=NBER Working Paper No. 15596 |page=6 |doi=10.3386/w15596 |date=December 2009 |doi-access=free}} In addition, profit margins in either animals or hay were still minimal, and farmers at first had little incentive to change their crops.

Patrick Allitt recounts how fellow historian Donald Worster responded to his return visit to the Dust Bowl in the mid-1970s when he revisited some of the worst afflicted counties:

:Capital-intensive agribusiness had transformed the scene; deep wells into the aquifer, intensive irrigation, the use of artificial pesticides and fertilizers, and giant harvesters were creating immense crops year after year whether it rained or not. According to the farmers he interviewed, technology had provided the perfect answer to old troubles, such of the bad days would not return. In Worster's view, by contrast, the scene demonstrated that America's capitalist high-tech farmers had learned nothing. They were continuing to work in an unsustainable way, devoting far cheaper subsidized energy to growing food than the energy could give back to its ultimate consumers.Patrick Allitt, A Climate of Crisis: America in the Age of Environmentalism (2014) p 203

In contrast with Worster's pessimism, historian Mathew Bonnifield argued that the Dust Bowl's long-term significance was "the triumph of the human spirit in its capacity to endure and overcome hardships and reverses."Allitt p 211, paraphrasing William Cronin's evaluation of Mathew Paul Bonnifield, Dust Bowl: Men, Dirt and Depression(1979)

A 2023 study in the Journal of Economic History found that while the Dust Bowl had large and enduring impacts on agricultural land, it had modest impacts on average wage incomes.{{Cite journal |last=Hornbeck |first=Richard |date=2023 |title=Dust Bowl Migrants: Environmental Refugees and Economic Adaptation |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-economic-history/article/abs/dust-bowl-migrants-environmental-refugees-and-economic-adaptation/9876C760B117636890F8ED3C88840898 |journal=The Journal of Economic History |volume=83 |issue=3 |pages=645–675 |language=en |doi=10.1017/S0022050723000244 |s2cid=235678459 |issn=0022-0507}}

File:Lange-MigrantMother02.jpg seen in the photo Migrant Mother by Dorothea Lange]]

File:Dust Bowl farmers of west Texas in town.jpg, June 1937, in Anton, Texas.]]

The crisis was documented by photographers, musicians, and authors, many hired during the Great Depression by the federal government. For instance, the Farm Security Administration hired photographers to document the crisis. Artists such as Dorothea Lange were aided by having salaried work during the Depression.{{cite web |title=Destitute Pea Pickers in California: Mother of Seven Children, Age Thirty-two, Nipomo, California. Migrant Mother |url=http://www.wdl.org/en/item/81/ |publisher=World Digital Library |access-date=February 10, 2013 |date=February 1936 |archive-date=January 26, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130126040914/http://www.wdl.org/en/item/81/ |url-status=live }} She captured what have become classic images of the dust storms and migrant families. Among her best-known photographs is Destitute Pea Pickers in California. Mother of Seven Children depicted a gaunt-looking woman, Florence Owens Thompson, holding three of her children. This picture expressed the struggles of people caught by the Dust Bowl and raised awareness in other parts of the country of its reach and human cost. Decades later, Thompson disliked the boundless circulation of the photo and resented that she had received no money from its broadcast. Thompson felt it made her perceived as a Dust Bowl "Okie".{{cite book |last1=DuBois |first1=Ellen Carol |last2=Dumenil |first2=Lynn |title=Through Women's Eyes |year=2012 |publisher=Bedford/St. Martin's |isbn=978-0-312-67603-2 |page=583 |edition=Third}}

The work of independent artists was also influenced by the crises of the Dust Bowl and the Depression. Author John Steinbeck, borrowing closely from field notes taken by Farm Security Administration worker and author Sanora Babb,{{cite web |url=https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-dust-bowl/sanora-babb/ |title=The Dust Bowl – Sanora Babb biography |author= |publisher=PBS |access-date=2 May 2021 |quote= |archive-date=August 19, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210819065920/https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-dust-bowl/sanora-babb/ |url-status=live }} wrote The Grapes of Wrath (1939) about migrant workers and farm families displaced by the Dust Bowl. Babb's own novel about the lives of the migrant workers, Whose Names Are Unknown, was written in 1939, but was eclipsed and shelved in response to Steinbeck's success, and was not published till 2004.{{cite web |url=http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/web/babb/career/whose2.html |title=Whose Names Are Unknown: Sanora Babb |publisher=Harry Ransom Center |access-date=December 22, 2015 |archive-date=December 8, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151208142018/http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/web/babb/career/whose2.html |url-status=live }}{{cite web |url=https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/dustbowl/bios/sanora-babb/ |title=Biographies: Sanora Babb |author=Dayton Duncan, preface by Ken Burns |work=The Dust Bowl: An Illustrated History |date=2012 |publisher=PBS |access-date=February 13, 2016 |archive-date=March 4, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304024023/http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/dustbowl/bios/sanora-babb/ |url-status=live }}See:

• Lanzendorfer, Joy, [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/forgotten-dust-bowl-novel-rivaled-grapes-wrath-180959196/ "The forgotten Dust Bowl novel that rivaled 'The Grapes of Wrath'"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171228171606/https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/forgotten-dust-bowl-novel-rivaled-grapes-wrath-180959196/ |date=December 28, 2017 }}, Smithsonian.com, 2016 May 23.
• [http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/dustbowl/bios/sanora-babb/ "Sanora Babb"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304024023/http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/dustbowl/bios/sanora-babb/ |date=March 4, 2016 }}, The Dust Bowl: a film by Ken Burns, PBS.org (2012)
• For the role of Tom Collins of the Farm Security Administration in Steinbeck's novel, see: John Steinbeck with Robert Demott, ed., Working Days: The Journals of The Grapes of Wrath, 1938–1941 (New York, New York: Penguin Books, 1990), [https://books.google.com/books?id=6anuYIZDBOIC&pg=PR28 pp. xxvii–xxviii] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210429190813/https://books.google.com/books?id=6anuYIZDBOIC&pg=PR28 |date=April 29, 2021 }}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=6anuYIZDBOIC&pg=PA33 33 (journal entry for 1938 June 24).] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210429051210/https://books.google.com/books?id=6anuYIZDBOIC&pg=PA33 |date=April 29, 2021 }} Many of folk singer Woody Guthrie's songs, such as those on his 1940 album Dust Bowl Ballads, are about his experiences in the Dust Bowl era during the Great Depression, when he traveled with displaced farmers from Oklahoma to California and learned their traditional folk and blues songs, earning him the nickname the "Dust Bowl Troubadour".Alarik, Scott. [http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2005/08/07/robert_burns_unplugged/ Robert Burns unplugged.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304073154/http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2005/08/07/robert_burns_unplugged/ |date=March 4, 2016 }} The Boston Globe, August 7, 2005. Retrieved on December 5, 2007.

Migrants also influenced musical culture wherever they went. Oklahoma migrants, in particular, were rural Southwesterners who carried their traditional country music to California. Today, the "Bakersfield Sound" describes this blend, which developed after the migrants brought country music to the city. Their new music inspired a proliferation of country dance halls as far south as Los Angeles.

The 2003–2005 HBO TV series Carnivàle was set during the Dust Bowl period.

The 2014 science fiction film Interstellar features a ravaged 21st-century America that is again scoured by dust storms (caused by a worldwide pathogen affecting all crops). Along with inspiration from the 1930s crisis, director Christopher Nolan features interviews from the 2012 documentary The Dust Bowl to draw further parallels.{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2014/11/06/how-ken-burns-surprise-role-in-interstellar-explains-the-movie/ |title=How Ken Burns' surprise role in 'Interstellar' explains the movie |newspaper=The Washington Post |first=Alyssa |last=Rosenberg |date=November 6, 2014 |access-date=November 8, 2014 |archive-date=November 8, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141108023023/http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2014/11/06/how-ken-burns-surprise-role-in-interstellar-explains-the-movie/ |url-status=live }}

In 2017, Americana recording artist Grant Maloy Smith released the album Dust Bowl – American Stories, inspired by the history of the Dust Bowl.{{cite web |url=https://kdminer.com/news/2017/jun/01/kingman-gets-mention-dust-bowl-album/?templates=desktop |title=Kingman gets a mention on Dust Bowl album |work=Kingman Daily Miner |first=Hubble |last=Smith |date=June 1, 2017 |access-date=June 11, 2017 |archive-date=October 10, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171010022349/https://kdminer.com/news/2017/jun/01/kingman-gets-mention-dust-bowl-album/?templates=desktop |url-status=live }} In a review, the music magazine No Depression wrote that the album's lyrics and music are "as potent as Woody Guthrie, as intense as John Trudell and dusted with the trials and tribulations of Tom Joad{{snd}}Steinbeck and The Grapes of Wrath."{{cite web |url=http://nodepression.com/album-review/expressive-original-songs-steeped-dirt-reality-dust-bowl-depression-era |title=Expressive Original Songs Steeped In the Dirt & Reality of the Dust Bowl-Depression Era |work=No Depression |first=John |last=Apice |date=May 22, 2017 |access-date=June 11, 2017 |archive-date=July 6, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170706030509/http://nodepression.com/album-review/expressive-original-songs-steeped-dirt-reality-dust-bowl-depression-era |url-status=live }}

• 1936 North American heat wave
• Desertification
• Goyder's Line – semiarid area of Australia
• Global warming
• List of environmental disasters
• Monoculture
• Ogallala Aquifer
• Palliser's Triangle – semiarid area of Canada
• Semi-arid climate
• Tragedy of the commons
• U.S. Route 66 – notable Dust Bowl migration route to California
• Navajo Livestock Reduction – simultaneous program to prevent overgrazing and erosion

{{Reflist}}

{{Refbegin}}

• {{Cite book |last=Bonnifield |first=Paul |title=The dust bowl: men, dirt, and depression |publisher=University of New Mexico Press |year=1979 |isbn=978-0-8263-0485-8 |location=Albuquerque}}
• {{Cite book |last=Cunfer |first=Geoff |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VN1v7rzhSQEC |title=Placing history: how maps, spatial data, and GIS are changing historical scholarship |date=2008 |publisher=ESRI Press |isbn=978-1-58948-013-1 |editor-last=Knowles |editor-first=Anne Kelly |location=Redlands, CA |chapter=Scaling the Dust Bowl |editor-last2=Hillier |editor-first2=Amy}}
• {{Cite book |last=Gregory |first=James N. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qNdtGwnXYrIC |title=American exodus: the dust bowl migration and Okie culture in California |date=1991 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-507136-8 |location=New York, NY}}
• {{Cite book |last=Lassieur |first=Allison |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wnUYNCMvf8wC |title=The Dust Bowl: an interactive history adventure |date=2009 |publisher=Capstone Press |isbn=978-1-4296-2343-8 |series=You choose books |location=Mankato, Minn |oclc=244177146}}
• {{Cite book |last=Reis |first=Ronald A. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DQ9ZoUJ1hWQC |title=The Dust Bowl |date=2008 |publisher=Infobase Publishing |isbn=978-0-7910-9737-3 |series=Great historic disasters |location=New York}}
• {{Cite journal |last1=Sylvester |first1=Kenneth M. |last2=Rupley |first2=Eric S. A. |date=July 2012 |title=Revising the Dust Bowl: High Above the Kansas Grasslands |journal=Environmental History |volume=17 |issue=3 |pages=603–633 |doi=10.1093/envhis/ems047 |issn=1084-5453 |pmc=4185197 |pmid=25288873}}
• {{Cite book |last=Worster |first=Donald |author-link=Donald Worster |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8fM-ZWXPe_QC |title=Dust Bowl: the southern Plains in the 1930s |date=2004 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-517489-2 |edition=25th anniversary |location=New York}}
• {{Cite AV media |url=https://archive.org/details/woodyguthriefolk00guth |title=Woody Guthrie folk songs: a collection of songs by America's foremost balladeer |last=Guthrie |first=Woody |author-link=Woody Guthrie |last2=Seeger |first2=Pete |author-link2=Pete Seeger |publisher=Ludlow Music |year=1963 |place=New York |oclc=1036976480}}
• {{Cite book |last1=Lomax |first1=Alan |author-link=Alan Lomax |title=Hard hitting songs for hard-hit people |last2=Guthrie |first2=Woody |author-link2=Woody Guthrie |last3=Seeger |first3=Pete |author-link3=Pete Seeger |date=1967 |publisher=Oak Publications |isbn=978-0-8256-0041-8 |location=New York, N.Y. |oclc=190819}}
• {{Cite book |last=Egan |first=Timothy |author-link=Timothy Egan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=np1RwDQfpjsC |title=The worst hard time: the untold story of those who survived the great American dust bowl |date=2006 |publisher=Mariner Books |isbn=978-0-618-34697-4 |location=Boston}}
• {{Cite book |last=Janke |first=Katelan |title=Survival in the storm: the dust bowl diary of Grace Edwards |date=2002 |publisher=Scholastic |isbn=978-0-439-21599-2 |series=Dear America |location=New York}}
• {{Cite book |last=Sweeney |first=Kevin Z. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NDV9DQAAQBAJ |title=Prelude to the Dust Bowl: drought in the Nineteenth-Century Southern Plains |date=2016 |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |isbn=978-0-8061-5340-7 |location=Norman}}

{{refend}}

• 1936 – The Plow That Broke the Plains – 25 minutes, directed by Pare Lorentz
• 1998 – Surviving the Dust Bowl – 52 minutes, season 10 episode of American Experience documentary tv series
• 2012 – The Dust Bowl – 240 minutes, 4 episodes, directed by Ken Burns

{{Commons category}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20061014181201/http://www.weru.ksu.edu/new_weru/multimedia/dustbowl/dustbowlpics.html The Dust Bowl photo collection]
• [https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/dustbowl/ "The Dust Bowl"], a PBS television series by filmmaker Ken Burns
• [http://eh.net/?s=dust+bowl The Dust Bowl] (EH.Net Encyclopedia)
• [http://www.kansashistory.us/dustbowl.html Black Sunday, April 14, 1935, Dodge City, KS]
• [http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/collafc.af000011 Voices from the Dust Bowl: The Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin Migrant Worker Collection, 1940–1941] Library of Congress, American Folklife Center Online collection of archival sound recordings, photographs, and manuscripts
• [https://livinghistoryfarm.org/farming-in-the-1930s/water/the-dust-bowl/ The Dust Bowl (Wessels Living History Farm)]
• [http://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=DU011 Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture – Dust Bowl]
• [http://www.library.okstate.edu/oralhistory/dustbowl/ Dust, Drought, and Dreams Gone Dry: Oklahoma Women in the Dust Bowl Oral History Project], Oklahoma Oral History Research Program
• [http://voicesofoklahoma.com/interview/troy-frosty/ Voices of Oklahoma interview with Frosty Troy.] First person interview conducted on November 30, 2011 with Frosty Troy talking about the Oklahoma Dust Bowl. Original audio and transcript archived with [http://voicesofoklahoma.com Voices of Oklahoma oral history project.]
• {{YouTube|playlist= PLzkQfVIJun2Kl_ZEVTYA-qXlloRYQP3kv|title=Dust Bowl – Ken Burns}}
• {{YouTube|playlist=PLF211AA273F925771|title=Dust Bowl – Ken Burns}}

{{Great Depression}}

{{Oklahoma history}}

{{Authority control}}

Category:Great Plains

Category:Great Depression in the United States

Category:Internal migrations in the United States

Category:History of agriculture in the United States

Category:History of the American West

Category:Environmental disasters in the United States

Category:Soil in the United States

Category:Droughts in the United States

Category:Agriculture in the United States

Category:Agriculture in Oklahoma

Category:Agriculture in Texas

Category:Agriculture in Kansas

Category:Agriculture in Canada

Category:20th-century droughts

Category:1930s natural disasters in the United States

Category:Natural disasters in Oklahoma

Category:1930s droughts