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I have actually seen pictures of my grandparents farm in Oklahoma from the 30's that look similar if not so extreme.
Wow what a photo. I knew the mid west suffered but I didnt know it had been that extreme in South Dakota.
I read a story about the dust bowl days recently, it was very interesting. People of today have it made, we take too much for granted.
I saw something on the History Channel recently about the tractor's contribution to the Dust Bowl. They said that with mechanical plowing of the land, increased demand after WWI, and drought that the level of topsoil in the Heartland was no longer anchored down and the dust therefore came up. I don't recall the figures, but it may have been in the millions of tons of dust which was transported during this time.
When I was growing up in California in the 1930s to 1950s, I often observed more prejudice against “okies” and “arkies” than against Blacks (only 15,000 out of 7 million in the state ca 1940), Mexicans (except Zoot-Suiters and Pachuco gang members), and Asians (Chinese allies good, Japs bad). Even as late as 1956 on a troop train heading home to California for our discharges, several GIs from well to do southern California families became biologically hostile to a kid, whom they referred to as a “shit-kicker” okie. They gave him plenty of verbal abuse short of physical violence.Of course, many young escapees from the Dust Bowl were drafted and others had well-paying defense plant jobs during WWII, made good money, and the smart ones bought homes and started businesses in the San Fernando Valley that flourished after the war. Others took advantage of the GI Bill and got an education that would have been impossible before WWII.
