At times, I reflect that for Americans living on the Great Plains, the Dust Bowl years must’ve been about the most miserable time imaginable. The Dust Bowl years were during the 1930s. This was the same time as the Great Depression in the U.S. But for people living on the Great Plains, their great depression wasn’t only economic in nature.

You’ve probably seen some pictures of the Plains during the Dust Bowl years. If you haven’t, just keep reading. I’ve got some for you.

How Long Did the Dust Bowl Years Last?

An exact answer does not exist. Different places experienced different intensities of drought during the Dust Bowl years. But, generally speaking, 1930 to 1938 takes in most areas. If you want more precision, think of the Dust Bowl as four different droughts that occurred in such rapid succession that farmers couldn’t recover from one before the next took place.

That means that for nearly a decade, Great Plains farmers had to deal with economic depression, drought, winds, and dust storms. During the heart of the Dust Bowl years, they often dealt with more than one of these at a time.

Some Causes

I’ve written about this previously (read the post with this link), but here is the brief version. During World War I, prices for crops were excellent. The armies of Europe needed food, and the U.S. became a major supplier. The U.S. government even encouraged farmers to plant more, especially after the U.S. joined the war in 1917. Food will win the war!

With prices high, Great Plains farmers plowed marginal land that would only bring a profit when prices peaked. When World War I ended, prices returned to more typical levels. But the damage was done, ecologically. The prairie grasses and sod that had held the dirt in place was plowed under. When dry conditions and high winds arrived, this dirt would blow all over the place. It took several years, but by 1930, this is what happened.

You might be thinking that the grass could regrow between 1921 and 1930, but farmers did not allow that to happen. To expand their production during the war, many took out loans for expensive machinery or to buy more land, banking on continuing high crop prices to pay off the loans.

When the war ended and crop prices dropped, income dropped accordingly, but the loans remained. So, farmers had to keep planting marginal land to produce more in the hopes of selling more crops to get the money they needed.

Individually, this was smart. It was the only solution available, in any case. But collectively, it was unwise. With so many farmers maintaining or increasing their production, market saturation developed. Crop prices dropped again as a result.

The 1930s Were Like the 1920s

Because of these developments, the 1920s were not a very good economic decade for American farmers. And farmers were about 50% of the population in this decade. They struggled with debt and low crop prices, just as they would in the 1930s.

But the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s added the winds, drought, and dust storms. Not every day, maybe, and not everywhere at once, but often enough to make these years miserable ones for many on the Great Plains.

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One need not be a professional psychologist to imagine the impact this had on peoples’ outlook. No society can exist without farming. Great Plains farmers knew that they provided a critical service to society. Yet, for twenty years, they faced economic hardship and poverty. It must’ve seemed to them like the rest of the nation was living by standing on their backs. We should also note the health impact of dust storms in terms of things like respiratory disease.

The Hoover administration made a few efforts at farm relief once the Great Depression began. The general consensus, however, is that they were too small in scope. Some New Deal programs of the 1930s helped more. Subsidizing farmers not to grow crops was one example. It might’ve seemed counterintuitive to tell farmers to farm less. But eventually, the market saturation for farm products diminished. (Other actions approved by the Roosevelt administration included emergency supplies of stock and seed, education on better soil conservation techniques, and belts of trees to help disrupt winds.)

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Effects of the Dust Bowl Years

The 1940s brought both more rain and economic recovery. For the farmers who remained on the Great Plains, life improved. But for many, the damage was done. The Great Plains have been in decline (in terms of their share of national population) ever since the 1920s. Okies, Arkies, and farmers from other states moved away throughout the 1930s. Many went to California, such as those immortalized in the John Steinbeck novel The Grapes of Wrath or in the more recent book The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah. (Read my review with this link.)

One simple way to measure this decline is in Electoral College votes. In the 1928 election, the states of the Great Plains (the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma) had 38 electoral votes combined. By 1960, they had 28. In the 2020 election, these states totaled 24.

The Dust Bowl years, therefore, were a rough time for American farmers. Life was difficult. Some persevered on the Great Plains, but many did not.

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