Dust+Bowl

=The Dust Bowl By Sarrah Schreffler =

__What is the Dust Bowl?__ "The Dust Bowl" was a series of enormous dust storms in the mid-west region of the united states, that transformed "the Great Plains" into "The Dust Bowl". The first major storm took place in November of 1933, and the storms did not stop until the end of the 1930's. The storms caused discomfort to everyone they effected, forcing many out of their homes.

__Where did the Dust Bowl take place?__ The Dust bowl took place the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma, and adjacent parts of New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas, but the effects of the dust bowl were widespread, throughout the entire country.

__What Caused the Dust Bowl:__ Settlement in the West drastically increased after the Civil war. Many settlers were looking for a way to get away from the devastated, poverty stricken east coast. In 1862, Lincoln passed the Homestead Act, which enabled anyone who could pay a small registration fee, to claim 160 acres of land in the West. This encouraged many families struggling in the East to move. The dust bowl was, at this time, going through a particularly wet period which lead settlers to believe that the climate had changes permanently, causing more people to head out west. The settlers that were coming and claiming land were inexperienced in western farming and did not know how to properly take care of the soil they were given. Many settlers destroyed their fields by overplanting or overgrazing their animals; and as a result of this the crucial level of topsoil was lost. In the beginning of the 1930’s the climate changed dramatically again. The plentiful rain that had drawn many settlers in stopped and horrible drought occurred; and the mild winters that the settlers had knows shifted to harsh blizzard-like conditions. The already destroyed and turned up soil had no way of anchoring itself to the ground and therefore was no match for the rocket-like winds that shot over the plains. As the winds blew over the fields they took with them the top layer of dry soil. The windstorms would not let up for another decade, thus turning the “Great Plains” into the “Dust Bowl”.

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__Effects of the Dust bowl__: __Government's Response:__
 * By the mid 1940's the demographics and political economics had changed for good.
 * The Dust bowl took place during the The Stock Market Crash and The Great Depression, so farmers in the mid-west were already having a hard time financially. The dust storms came and forced many of them into bankruptcy.
 * The government's response to all of this was to step in and try to put a stop to the dust storms that were hurting the West.
 * The government formed many groups that would help people effected by the dust bowl, and help farmers to do things to stop it, some of which are the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), the Federal Surplus Relief Corporation (FSRC), and many more.