Federal Governments Role in the Dust Bowl

Word Count: 989

Paper #1 Federal Governments Role in the Dust Bowl

The infamous Dust Bowl of the 1930s was one of the most horrific and devastating environmental crises to hit twentieth century North America. The Dust Bowl was a period of unyielding dust storms which inevitably caused major agricultural, ecological and irreversible damage to the American and Canadian prairie lands. The Dust Bowl lasted from 1930 to 1936, in some areas the drought lasted until 1940. The Dust Bowl of the 1930s was mostly a man-made disaster. Some critical factors that played a role in the cause of the dust bowl are: decades of extensive farming without crop rotation, agricultural advances, the great depression, and deep plowing which destroyed the grasses which ultimately damaged the soil and dried it up. The Federal Government had an extensive role during the Dust Bowl which ultimately aided in creating the dust bowl, exacerbating and lastly aiding victims of this crisis. The Federal government did not see the underlying and future problems of deep plowing the Great Plains which consisted of 100 million acres on the other hand the Government did a excellent job in addressing the crisis and aiding the hundreds of thousands Americans who were vastly affected by this environmental crisis.

There are many factors that contributed and aided to the cause of the Dust Bowl. These factors consisted of poor plowing techniques, The Great Depression, the outbreak of World War 1, agricultural failure and the collapse of the rural economy. A major contributor to the droughts and poor condition of the land was due to the outbreak of WWI. While the war was going on Washington thought wheat would win the war. Furthermore with record high prices for wheat millions of acres of grassland were now being plowed at a rapid pace and the race to turn every inch of Southern Plains into profit began. The current president at the time Herbert Hoover quotes “Americans are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of the land.” With the increase of wheat and cotton it seemed as if the economy was turning around although this would soon prove to be untrue. “The tractors rolled on, the grass yanked up, a million acres a year, turned and pulverized; in just 5 years, 1925 to 1930, another 5.2 million acres of native sod went under the plow in the southern plains” (Egan, 58). It is clear to see that the federal government had sincere intensions of improving the state of the economy although it is also obvious that the government aided to the creation of the Dust Bowl.

With the price for wheat and cotton skyrocketing thousands of farmers migrated towards the southern plains in hopes to get a piece of the fortune. Now there were even more farmers plowing the southern plains, farmers now wanted to plow as much wheat and cotton as possible to make profit before the next farmer could. Thus ultimately led to poor plowing techniques and aided to the destruction of the soil which vastly contributed to the Dust Bowl. It may seem that the government was not doing a satisfactory job in rectifying this environmental crisis but in actuality the government was implementing many new programs to aid the victims of the Dust Bowl.

With the severe droughts and damaged soil agricultural failure was taking place. Farmers were losing money and were on the brink of foreclosure. “Later that year, the government men offered contracts to wheat farmers if they agreed not to plant the next year. In the end many farmers were not going to plant anyway, what was the use with no water? So the idea that they could get money by agreeing to grow nothing was not a hard sell. More than twelve hundred wheat farmers in No Man’s land signed up for contracts and in turn got $642,637, an average of $498 a farmer”