How did the Dust Bowl get it's name?

Answer 1

There are some good answers already, but "Dust Bowl" is only one element of this era.

There have been droughts before, and farmers have other problems that cause them to have some bad years mixed with the good years. But this one came in the middle of the Great Depression... and farmers in the region who were already hard pressed for cash couldn't survive this catastrophe.

Whole families left the farms that had been handed down from generation to generation. The area had once had lush fields, but now had nothing more than dry, dusty land.

Most of the families moved to California in hopes of finding work. They became migrant workers, moving from farm to farm and doing the types of things they had done on their own farms.

The bare facts do not provide a total understanding of the time. Less than a decade after the migration, John Steinbeck wrote a book called The Grapes of Wrath. This book earned him the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1940.

Although the book is fiction; it detailed the exploitation of the farmers, the deceptions, the greed, and the corruption that caused the farmers to lose hope and abandon their farms. In the sources that I listed are several synopses of The Grapes of Wrath... and although I'd recommend reading the entire book, the short summaries will help you understand the times.

Answer 2

The Dust Bowl got its name after Black Sunday, April 14, 1935. More and more dust storms had been blowing up in the years leading up to that day. In 1932, 14 dust storms were recorded on the Plains. In 1933, there were 38 storms. By 1934, it was estimated that 100 million acres of farmland had lost all or most of the topsoil to the winds. By April 1935, there had been weeks of dust storms, but the cloud that appeared on the horizon that Sunday was the worst. Winds were clocked at 60 mph. Then it hit.

"The impact is like a shovelful of fine sand flung against the face," Avis D. Carlson wrote in a New Republic article. "People caught in their own yards grope for the doorstep. Cars come to a standstill, for no light in the world can penetrate that swirling murk... We live with the dust, eat it, sleep with it, watch it strip us of possessions and the hope of possessions. It is becoming Real."

The day after Black Sunday, an Associated Press reporter used the term "Dust Bowl" for the first time. "Three little words achingly familiar on the Western farmer's tongue, rule life in the dust bowl of the continent – if it rains." The term stuck and was used by radio reporters and writers, in private letters and public speeches.

Answer 3

The Dust Bowl got it's name from the giant dust storms that occurred over land, blowing thick, black dust everywhere.

Answer 4

A prolonged drought occurred in Oklahoma in the late twenties to early thirties. As the drought continued with the wind causing dust swirls and dust devils it is easy to see why the drought area of Oklahoma was called the dust bowl. As a postscript, the farmers of the area migrated to Bakersfield, Calif with their worldly possessions strapped to their cars in search of a better life. They were referred to as Okies.

Answer 5

Crops did not grow and the soil was allowed to try. The dust was not held down by roots, and so the wind would simply pick it up and blow it around. Geographically, it is sourrounded by mountians on 2-3 sides, forming a bowl shape.

Answer 6

someone liked the name dust and bowl so they called it a dust bowl

Answer 7

Because of drought conditions, crops died leaving farms barren.
The soil dried up and turned into a fine powder. Wind blew this into the air which created 'dust'.

Answer 8

there was a bad drought in the midwest, and all the farming soil turned to dust, and the wind blew it around and there were dust storms everyday like crazy.

Answer 9

it got its name because it was so dusty in OK and the dust roll around on the ground kinda like a bowling ball.....duh! lol

Answer 10

Drought - mucho dust from drought after the crops failed....