These chapters of TWHT have been very emotional. The stories about what people had to live through and how much they struggled daily was heart-wrenching for me. The people who stayed had to be resilient and incredibly stubborn - they were truly living through the worst of the hard times. Although many did not want to abandon what they’d know for most of their lives, in reality, they really didn’t have many options to turn to. People held onto the memories of the good days to see them through each nightmarish day.

As a U.S. history teacher, this era is one of the components of my curriculum so I knew facts and some stories about the time period. I knew of the pain and suffering that people in the Plains went through during the Depression and Dust Bowl era; this book has opened my eyes to the level of suffering that people struggled through. Reading the first-hand accounts has left me grieving for these people and these communities in a way I did not think I would be doing. The stories of death, suffering, and loss has shaped how I will be teaching this era in the future.

It seems impossible to manage to keep a modern home clean, I can't imagine keeping a home clean during these dusters that families were facing. I also can't imagine the challenge of trying to keep a family healthy through nutrition and dust storms. Women truly did have to become innovators.

Women truly are the glue of their families, especially in these times. Like you said, women didn't have knowledge of calories or nutrition, but they still did their best to take care of their families and provide them the meals that they felt would help them.

Based on both readings, women were in charge of the traditional housekeeping during this era. Both of the books focus on the increasingly impossible task of women feeding their families, even when there was little to no income or food to be found. There were ways that the government supported this, but oftentimes it seems that it was questionable. The importance of balanced nutrition was becoming clear, but sharing this information didn’t mean that citizens could or would follow it. Women had to find new ways to feed their families, with new recipes, new food sources, or through charity. It seems that this incredibly important task fell almost entirely on the shoulders of women.

One of the biggest roles for women was keeping the family healthy.  The Worst Hard Time devotes quite a bit of information to sharing how women kept dust, often unsuccessfully, from invading their homes.  It seemed like enough coverings and layers would stop the piles from making it inside, but women were continuously creating new ideas to improve the situation.  I think it's hard for us to fathom exactly what it would be like to live through this and persevere.

At home, they managed household budgets more tightly, grew their own food in gardens, and made clothes to save money. This highlights another difficult area- the continued need to feed the family.  Women came up with new and creative ways of trying to keep a garden alive, sometimes also unsuccessfully.  I am amazed that they were able to can the tumbleweeds to survive, but I think the most astounding food was the canning of rabbit meat.  Women became innovators in using what was available to survive.

Women also found ways to help the family overcome losing everything.  As the years progressed, families had to do with less and less.  The book mentions one child who was wearing the only option available- sack cloth.  As men lost their jobs, women stepped up to fill the gaps by working in factories, as teachers, and in various service jobs, often for lower wages, or as one example in the book mentioned, for no wages.   

Additionally, women organized community efforts such as food drives and local charities to help those in need. These actions not only provided immediate relief to struggling families but also gradually changed societal views on women's roles, highlighting their importance in both the workforce and the home during a challenging time in American history.

Women have always held their families together.  The Depression called for women to step up in new ways.  They were called upon to find ways to feed their families, help financially and invent ways to secure their homes from dust!  Food and money were in major issues that required women to come up with new ideas.  These same women had to invent ways to protect their homes from the dust invasion. 
Women created new recipes to make use of what they had and what they found out had the most nutritional value.  They went into this season not knowing about calories or nutrition.  That is a lot to take in!  

An example of financial struggles is Caroline Henderson.  She broke with tradition and graduated from college.  Then she fell in love with a farmer in what turned into No Man’s land.  Their marriage started on a high with bumper wheat crop but it went down hill fast!  She had to muster the will to stay.  She was reduced to gathering cow chips for fuel but still he stayed.

Women also became involved in finding solutions.  Eleanor Roosevelt was instrumental in putting together “women executives.”  She also held all-women press conferences.  This shows that women were joining professional careers like never before.  

Looking back at some of the stories we have read, it seems that women were challenged with making ends meet in creative ways that had never been tried before. Everything from making clothing from potato sacks, trying out new recipes with foods their families were unaccustomed to, even inventing a way to eat tumbleweed canned in brine  (Worst, p. 162), and finding ways to block out the dust that seeped into homes was a daily struggle. They had to nurse family members sick with dust pneumonia and tend to children who couldn't attend school because they might get trapped there by a duster and be unable to get back home (Worst, p. 172). Women also found work outside the homes when their husbands were unable to raise crops to sell; they took in sewing, worked as domestic staff, even taught school - sometimes for scrip that later proved worthless. (Worst, p.167) There are many examples in A Square Meal of social workers and home economists doing their best to prevent malnutrition and starvation by working with aid programs, creating recipes, spreading information about nutrition/vitamins, pushing for school lunch programs...The women were busy night and day.

  Kira Duke  I work closely with our Family and Consumer Science faculty, and I can't wait to share this with them. Thanks for the great resources, and the pointer for the really interesting book with so many implications for how we eat today.