Dust Bowl, a section of the Great Plains of the United States that extended over southeastern Colorado, southwestern Kansas, the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma, and northeastern New Mexico.
The term Dust Bowl was suggested by conditions that struck the region in the early 1930s. The area’s grasslands had supported mostly stockraising until World War I, when millions of acres were put under the plow in order to grow wheat. Following years of overcultivation and generally poor land management in the 1920s, the region—which receives an average rainfall of less than 20 inches (500 mm) in a typical year—suffered a severe drought in the early 1930s that lasted several years. The region’s exposed topsoil, robbed of the anchoring, water-retaining roots of its native grasses, was carried off by heavy spring winds. “Black blizzards” of windblown soil blocked out the sun and piled the dirt in drifts. Occasionally the dust storms swept completely across the country to the East Coast. Thousands of families were forced to leave the region at the height of the Great Depression in the early and mid-1930s.
The wind erosion was gradually halted with federal aid; windbreaks were planted and much of the grassland was restored. By the early 1940s the area had largely recovered.
“The people came out of their houses and smelled the hot stinging air and covered their noses from it. And the children came out of the houses, but they did not run or shout as they would have done after a rain. Men stood by their fences and looked at the ruined corn, drying fast now, only a little green showing through the film of dust. The men were silent and they did not move often. And the women came out of the houses to stand beside their men - to feel whether this time the men would break. The women studied the men's faces secretly, for the corn could go, as long as something else remained. The children stood near by drawing figures in the dust with bare toes, and the children sent exploring senses out to see whether men and women would break. The children peeked at the faces of the men and women, and then drew careful lines in the dust with their toes. Horses came to the watering troughs and nuzzled the water to clear the surface dust. After a while the faces of the watching men lost their bemused perplexity and became hard and angry and resistant. Then the women knew that they were safe and that there was no break. Then they asked, Whta'll we do? And the men replied, I don't know. but it was all right. The women knew it was all right, and the watching children knew it was all right. Women and children knew deep in themselves that no misfortune was too great to bear if their men were whole. The women went into the houses to their work, and the children began to play, but cautiously at first. As the day went forward the sun became less red. It flared down on the dust-blanketed land. The men sat in the doorways of their houses; their hands were busy with sticks and little rocks. The men sat still - thinking - figuring.”
John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath