Dust Bowls

                     The Dust Bowls was caused by several economic and cultural factors, including federal land policies, changes in regional weather, farm economics and other cultural factors. After the Civil War, a series of federal land acts coaxed pioneers westward by incetivizing farming in the Great Plains. 
                     The Dust Bowl, also known as "The Dirty Thirties", started in 1930 and lasted for about a decade, but its long term economic impacts on the region lingered much longer. Severe drought hit the Midwest and Southern Great plains in 1930. Massive dust storm began in 1931. A series of drought years followed, further exacerbating the environmental disaster.
                    During the Dust Bowl period, severe dust storms, often called "Black Blizzards" swept the Great Plains. Some of these carried Great Plains topsoil as far east as Washington D.C. and New York city, and coated ships in the Atlantic Ocean with dust.Some people developed "dust pneumonia" and experienced chest pain and difficulty breathing. It's unclear exactly how many people may have died from the condition.
                    Roughly 2.5 million people left the Dust Bowl states- Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma during the 1930s. It was the largest migration in American history. These Dust Bowl refugees were called "Okies". Okies faced discrimination, menial labor and pitiable wages upon reaching California.
                   The Dust Bowl has been the subject of many cultural works, notably the novel "The Grapes of Wrath", "The Folk Music of Woody Guthrie", and "Photographs Depicting the Conditions of migrants" by Dorothea Large.

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