Download The dust bowl A series of dust storms in the central United States

The dust bowl
A series of dust storms in the central United States and Canada in the mid to late 1930s
Caused by a massive drought and decades of inappropriate farming techniques.
The fertile soil of the Great Plains was exposed through removal of grass during plowing. During
the drought, the soil dried out, became dust, and blew away.
The wind blew the dust to the east in very large black clouds. The clouds made the sky appear
black all the way to Chicago.
Eventually the soil was completely lost when it blew out to the Atlantic Ocean.
Beginning in 1934 and lasting until 1939, this ecological disaster caused an exodus from Texas,
Arkansas, Oklahoma, and the surrounding Great Plains, in which over 500,000 Americans were
homeless.
Topsoil across millions of acres was blown away because the indigenous sod had been broken for
wheat farming and the vast herds of buffalo were no longer fertilizing the rest of the indigenous
grasses.
It covered parts of Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Kansas, and New Mexico. Many of
these homeless migrated west looking for work. "Okie" became a generic term for members of this
mass migration.
Works Progress Administration (later Works Projects Administration,
abbreviated WPA)
Created in May 1935 by Presidential order (Congress funded it annually but did not set it
up).
It was the largest and most comprehensive New Deal agency.
It continued and expanded the FERA relief programs begun under Herbert Hoover and
continued under Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The WPA was a work relief program that provided jobs and income to the unemployed
during the Great Depression in the United States.
It built many public buildings and roads, and as well operated a large arts project.
Until it was closed down by Congress in 1943, it was the largest employer in the country-indeed, the largest employer in most states.
Only unemployed people on relief were eligible for most of its jobs.
The wages were the prevailing wages in the area, but workers could not work more than 2030 hours a week.
Before 1940 there was no training involved to teach people new skills.
THE NEW DEAL
The name given to the series of programs implemented between 1933-37 under President
Franklin D. Roosevelt with the goal of relief, recovery and reform of the United States economy
during the Great Depression.
Dozens of alphabet agencies were created as a result.
Historians distinguish the "First New Deal" of 1933 that had something for almost every group,
and the "Second New Deal" (1935-37) that introduced an element of class conflict.
The opponents of the New Deal, complaining of the cost and the shift of power to Washington,
stopped its expansion after 1937, and abolished many of its programs by 1943.
The National Recovery Administration was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. The
main programs still important today are Social Security and the Securities and Exchange
Commission, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), as well as the Tennessee Valley
Authority (TVA).