GDND - The Dust Bowl (Lesson)
The Dust Bowl
(aka. Dust Storm Disaster)
Words and Music by Woody Guthrie
On the 14th day of April of 1935,
There struck the worst of dust storms that ever filled the sky.
You could see that dust storm comin', the cloud looked deathlike black,
And through our mighty nation, it left a dreadful track.
From Oklahoma City to the Arizona line,
Dakota and Nebraska to the lazy Rio Grande,
It fell across our city like a curtain of black rolled down,
We thought it was our judgement, we thought it was our doom.
The radio reported, we listened with alarm,
The wild and windy actions of this great mysterious storm;
From Albuquerque and Clovis, and all New Mexico,
They said it was the blackest that ever they had saw.
From old Dodge City, Kansas, the dust had rung their knell,
And a few more comrades sleeping on top of old Boot Hill.
From Denver, Colorado, they said it blew so strong,
They thought that they could hold out, but they didn't know how long.
Our relatives were huddled into their oil boom shacks,
And the children they was cryin' as it whistled through the cracks.
And the family it was crowded into their little room,
They thought the world had ended, and they thought it was their doom.
The storm took place at sundown, it lasted through the night,
When we looked out next morning, we saw a terrible sight.
We saw outside our window where wheat fields they had grown
Was now a rippling ocean of dust the wind had blown.
It covered up our fences, it covered up our barns,
It covered up our tractors in this wild and dusty storm.
We loaded our jalopies and piled our families in,
We rattled down that highway to never come back again.
The Dust Bowl
During World War I American farmers had the unique opportunity to supply crops to European nations at war. American farmers continued to provide for the United States and nations rebuilding in Europe after the war ended. As agricultural technology increased, so too did production on farms. However, as European nations were able to provide more for themselves, American farmers did not reduce their production. Much like the industries of the 1920s, farmers continued to cultivate their land at the same rate which led to overproduction after the demand in Europe declined.
When overproduction occurs in the fields that are cultivated with the same crops over time, a depletion of necessary soil nutrients occurs. Soil depletion and catastrophic erosion as a result of overproduction was devastating in the nation’s heartland.
Farmers had been planting millions of acres of flat land and had removed the root systems of prairie grass that had accumulated for thousands of years. Unfortunately, conditions were exacerbated and worsened by storms that rolled through the Midwest. Dust storms ravaged the region for days at a time. “Blackouts”, or days with the sun being blocked by clouds of dust, were common. Dust from the American Midwest was carried in clouds as far as the Atlantic Ocean. The massive droughts and devastating storms forced many Americans to migrate west for new opportunities and hope. Oklahoma was considered the most damaged state and thousands of residents of Oklahoma traveled west as migrants. These “Okies” became representative of the struggles of the Dust Bowl period. Their plight is represented in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.
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