Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that answer the question.
Query: What caused the Dust Bowl?
The Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s; severe drought and a failure to apply dryland farming methods to prevent the aeolian processes (wind erosion) caused the phenomenon.[1][2] The drought came in three waves, 1934, 1936, and 1939–1940, but some regions of the high plains experienced drought conditions for as many as eight years.[3] With insufficient understanding of the ecology of the plains, farmers had conducted extensive deep plowing of the virgin topsoil of the Great Plains during the previous decade; this had 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 10inches (~250mm) of precipitation per year) to cultivated cropland.[4]
The Dust Bowl was a series of dust storms caused by a massive drought that began in 1930 and lasted until 1941. The effect of the drought was overshadowed by the plunging wheat prices and the financial crisis of the Great Depression. Many local banks were forced to close. Some farmers left the land but even larger numbers of unemployed men left the cities to return to their family's farm.
In 2017, Americana recording artist Grant Maloy Smith released the album Dust Bowl – American Stories, which was inspired by the history of the Dust Bowl.[58] 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 – Steinbeck and The Grapes of Wrath."[59]
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 numerous photographers to document the crisis. Artists such as Dorothea Lange were aided by having salaried work during the Depression.[51] She captured what have become classic images of the dust storms and migrant families. Among her most well-known photographs is Destitute Pea Pickers in California. Mother of Seven Children,[51] which 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 the fact she did not receive any money from its broadcast. Thompson felt it gave her the perception as a Dust Bowl "Okie."[52]
Dust pneumonia describes disorders caused by excessive exposure to dust storms, particularly during the Dust Bowl in the United States. A form of pneumonia, dust pneumonia results when the lungs are filled with dust, inflaming the alveoli. 
The investigation determined that a major explosion occurred when something disturbed the dust, creating a cloud, which ignited. The investigation was unable to determine what disturbed the dust or what ignited it, due to the extensive damage at the plant. However, it is known that the machine had suffered multiple internal fires, including one that was powerful enough to blow off the mixer door. Four other theories were developed regarding possible causes: a batch of rubber that overheated and ignited; an electrical ballast or light fixture that ignited accumulated dust; a spark caused by a possible electrical fault; or ignition of dust in a cooling air duct feeding an electric motor.
During the Great Depression, the American government, without due process, deported between 1 and 2 million American citizens and legal residents of Mexican descent. This mass deportation, known as the Mexican Repatriation, took place from 1929 to 1939 and was empowered by panic of an alarming low unemployment rate sweeping over the United States at this time. The Dust Bowl was the name given to the Great Plains region devastated by drought in 1930s depression-ridden America. This triggered the migration of men, women and children seeking work, food and shelter making their way to California, hoping to find opportunity and a better life. Most of the migrants moving west were not farmers, having lived either in a town or city doing some kind of blue-collar work. They headed west unaware of the poor living conditions and only seasonal work that largely depended on the weather. The Midwesterners impacted by both the Depression and Dust Bowl packed up their families and relocated in hopes of finding a chance at the American dream, having realized that the drought and dust storms would not end anytime soon. Some sold what they could not bring along and began to drive west on Route 66. The term pea-picker was used to describe these particular group migrant workers in a negative context. The workers who picked these peas before the Dust Bowl migration and Mexican Repatriation had taken place were mostly Mexicans, Filipinos, and single white males before the Depression. This new work force of unskilled migrant families from the Dust Bowl now took their place and helped coin the term pea-pickers.
During the drought of the 1930s, the unanchored soil turned to dust, which the prevailing winds blew away in huge clouds that sometimes blackened the sky. These choking billows of dust – named "black blizzards" or "black rollers" – 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 3 feet (1m) 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, Kansas City news editor of the Associated Press coined the term "Dust Bowl" while rewriting Geiger's news story.[5][6] While the term "the Dust Bowl" was originally a reference to the geographical area affected by the dust, today it usually refers to the event itself (the term "Dirty Thirties" is also sometimes used).
Bonnifield, Mathew Paul. (1979) Dust Bowl: Men, Dirt and Depression Gregory, James Noble. American exodus: The dust bowl migration and Okie culture in California (Oxford University Press, 1989) Lassieur, Allison. (2009) Capstone Press, ISBN1-4296-3455-3 Reis, Ronald A. (2008) Chelsea House ISBN978-0-7910-9737-3 Sylvester, Kenneth M., and Eric S. A. Rupley, "Revising the Dust Bowl: High above the Kansas Grassland", Environmental History, 17 (July 2012), 603–33. Worster, Donald 2004 (1979) (25. anniversary ed) Oxford University Press. ISBN0-19-517489-5 Woody Guthrie, (1963) The (Nearly) Complete Collection of Woody Guthrie Folk Songs, Ludlow Music, New York. Alan Lomax, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, (1967) Hard-Hitting Songs for Hard-Hit People, Oak Publications, New York. Timothy Egan (2006) , Houghton Mifflin Company, New York, hardcover. ISBN0-618-34697-X. Katelan Janke, (1935) Survival in the Storm: The Dust Bowl Diary of Grace Edwards, Dalhart, Texas, Scholastic (September 2002). ISBN0-439-21599-4. Karen Hesse (paperback January 1999) Out of the Dust, Scholastic Signature. New York First Edition, 1997, hardcover. ISBN0-590-37125-8. Sanora Babb (2004) , University of Oklahoma Press, ISBN978-0-8061-3579-3. Sweeney, Kevin Z. (2016). Prelude to the Dust Bowl: Drought in the Nineteenth-Century Southern Plains Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press.
During the Dust Bowl, many farmers around Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle Area experienced the worst of the Depression. By the time the summer of 1936 hit, they had already been experiencing dust storms, winds that carried away all the precious topsoil and made it impossible to grow crops, plagues of Grasshoppers and starving jackrabbits that devoured anything left over in their fields, and terrible Dust Pneumonia, caused by the dust that had settled over everything. Many farmers, about a quarter of the population of the panhandle, packed up their few belongings and left for California, nicknamed the "Peach Bowl", in search of jobs as fruit harvesters. However, of the ones that did, few found the jobs they searched for, and even they had extremely low wages. These job-searchers were nicknamed "Okies", as so many of them were from Oklahoma.
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 buy capital to shift crop production.[48] In addition, profit margins in either animals or hay were still minimal, and farmers had little incentive in the beginning to change their crops.
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 caused by erosion, there were severe long-term economic consequences caused by the Dust Bowl.
In 2018, the Woody Guthrie Museum announced its plan to host a new program bowl that is intended to offer visitors the opportunity to experience Dust Bowl conditions in the Oklahoma Panhandle during 1934-1938. While wearing a virtual reality headset, they will sit on a replica of a front porch, watching a dust cloud roll in across the prairie to envelop them. The Dust Bowl inspired a number of Guthrie's musical works, and led him to take up the causes of migrant workers and other people disenfranchised by an ecological disaster.
The 2014 science fiction film Interstellar features a ravaged 21st-century America which 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.[57]
On April 14, 1935, known as "Black Sunday", 20 of the worst "black blizzards" occurred across the entire sweep of the Great Plains, from Canada south to Texas. The dust storms caused extensive damage and turned the day to night; witnesses reported that they could not see five feet in front of them at certain points. 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; it was coined by Edward Stanley, Kansas City news editor of the Associated Press, while rewriting Geiger's news story.[5][6]
Black Sunday refers to a particularly severe dust storm that occurred on April 14, 1935, as part of the Dust Bowl. It was one of the worst dust storms in American history and it caused immense economic and agricultural damage. It is estimated to have displaced 300 million tons of topsoil from the prairie area in the US.
The Legacy Series reconstructed great and significant works of modern dance from the first 100 years of modern dance's history. In 2007 the company was awarded a prestigious "American Masterpieces: Dance" grant by the New England Foundation for the Arts to re-stage "Folksay," a dance made in 1942 by the late Sophie Maslow. Set to a score by Woody Guthrie, "Folksay" is considered among the most significant modern dances of the period. CityDance has also staged "Dust Bowl Ballads," by Maslow. "Dust Bowl Ballads" reflects upon the American Experience during the 1930s dust bowl which swept through many parts of the American Midwest, causing the dust bowl migration made famous by John Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath." Also in the Legacy Series canon is "Harmonica Breakdown" by Jane Dudley. A 1938 work set to the "Harmonica and Washboard Blues" by Sonny Terry and Oh Red, "Harmonica Breakdown" is 4 minute solo work.
Dust Bowl may also refer to:
The Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms during the 1930s Depression Era.
Dalhart was in the center of the Dust Bowl, an area adversely affected by a long period of drought and dust storms during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Here, Tex Thornton, operating on the now debunked concussion theory, coaxed today's inflation-adjusted equivalent of $1 million from the locals on claims he could fire rocket-powered explosives into the clouds and cause rain.
Evidence suggests the jet stream was at least partly responsible for the widespread drought conditions during the 1930s Dust Bowl in the Midwest United States. Normally, the jet stream flows east over the Gulf of Mexico and turns northward pulling up moisture and dumping rain onto the Great Plains. During the Dust Bowl, the jet stream weakened and changed course traveling farther south than normal. This starved the Great Plains and other areas of the Midwest of rainfall, causing extraordinary drought conditions.
Interest in the environment created by the American Dust Bowl produced a flurry of calls in 1935 for ecology to take a look at practical issues. Pioneering ecologist C. C. Adams wanted to return human ecology to the science. Frederic E. Clements, the dominant plant ecologist of the day, reviewed land use issues leading to the Dust Bowl in terms of his ideas on plant succession and climax. Paul Sears reached a wide audience with his book, "Deserts on the March". World War II, perhaps, caused the issue to be put aside.
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, 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 the success of the Steinbeck's work, and was finally published in 2004.[53][54][55] Many of the songs of folk singer Woody Guthrie, 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".[56]
On November 11, 1933, a very strong dust storm stripped topsoil from desiccated South Dakota farmlands in just 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.[21] The dust clouds blew all the way to Chicago, where they deposited 12million pounds of dust (~ 5500 tonnes).[22] Two days later, the same storm reached cities to the east, such as Cleveland, Buffalo, Boston, New York City, and Washington, D.C.[23] That winter (1934–1935), red snow fell on New England.
The United States is affected by a variety of natural disasters yearly. Although drought is rare, it has occasionally caused major disruption, such as during the Dust Bowl (1931–1942). Farmland failed throughout the Plains, entire regions were virtually depopulated, and dust storms ravaged the land.