Imagine that you're a farmer during the Great Depression. Since the stock market crashed in 1929, you have struggled to make ends meet for yourself and your family. If you lived in certain regions of Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Kansas or other Plains states, you would stare in horror as giant clouds of dust overtook your land. Your hard work, your future plans, your very life itself — all being overwhelmed by, and buried in, piles of dust.
This horrific scenario was quite commonplace during the United States during the 1930s, and is referred to today as the dust bowl. After the Homestead Act of 1862 made it possible for white Americans to buy western land at extremely low prices, aspiring farmers began snapping up the newly-acquired western territories for cattle grazing and planting vast fields. Unfortunately, they did not apply dryland farming techniques, or agricultural methods that protect the soil from wind erosion when farmers must do their job without irrigation. As a result, the native and deep-rooted grasses that had kept the dirt in place for centuries was suddenly gone. Once a severe drought hit the region, the conditions were perfect for a series of severe dust storms — which happened over and over again in the battered American midwest during the 1930s.
