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    Bookmarks! Created Thursday, December 12 2024, 19:34 UTC

    Migrants who traveled away from the Dust Bowl had both positives and negatives. With the New Deal programs, the CCC and WPA helped young men find jobs building roads, doing construction jobs, or dealing with conservation. However, because there were so many people looking for jobs (unemployment got as high as 25%), you had to search and pray you were one of the first to apply. 

    People who stayed in the Plains area had the AAA to help with maintaining an income even though you didn't grow as much. However, the Dust Bowl continued for a majority of the decade.

    Sixth discussion question: Worst Hard Time & A Square Meal

    As both books note, while around 400,000 people migrated to the West during the Great Depression, only about 16,000 of those were from the Dust Bowl. The majority were families and transients from the Midwest and Great Plains. In the midst of the launching of various New Deal programs to aid both farmers and the unemployed, what made the people move to the western states? How was their situation better or worse than those people who stayed in the Dust Bowl?

    Bookmarks! Created Thursday, December 12 2024, 19:31 UTC

    Ken Burns produced a documentary specifically about the Dust Bowl. After reading these books and watching this documentary, it really shows how resilient everyday Americans are. To see these black blizzards rolling towards your home would have been absolutely terrifying. To watch your children cough or contract dust pneumonia must have been horrifying. But life continues. People often times did not have the means to pick up their belongings and move. Their entire lives and savings were invested in these farms. However, if your health and your family's health is in peril, what should you do? It is interesting to me how people could determine where these storms came from based on the type/color of soil it was.

    Fifth Discussion Question: Worst Hard Time & A Square Meal

    Over the last two weeks, we have read about the despair and hardship experienced by those who stayed in the areas hardest hit by the Dust Bowl and the efforts of the New Deal to address their suffering. How would you describe those that stayed in the high plains during Dust Bowl? How does reading these individual stories compare with your previous larger understanding of the hardship experienced by American during the Great Depression? 

      Social Studies/History    Virtual Book Club    Dust Bowl    Great Depression  

    Bookmarks! Created Thursday, December 12 2024, 19:28 UTC

    Whenever I teach about the Great Depression, I always love showing pictures. Well if you search "Great Depression" usually one of the first pictures that pops up is of a group of male workers standing in line at a soup kitchen. Sometimes in history we forget about others. But the most famous picture from the Great Depression was taken by Dorothea Lange of a woman holding her two children. This humanized the Great Depression. Yes, men were out trying to find some type of income for their families, but often times we forget about those who were at home. Eleanor Roosevelt's comment was regarding how it was "up to women" to continue taking care of the family and continuing on even if the father was absent. 

    Fourth Discussion Question: Worst Hard Time & A Square Meal

    In the midst of the Depression in 1933, Eleanor Roosevelt wrote a book titled It's Up to the Women. Thinking more broadly, what exactly was "up to the women" during the Depression? What new roles and tasks did women assume, both inside and outside of the home, to support their families and American families in general?

    Bookmarks! Created Tuesday, December 10 2024, 22:06 UTC

    The Resettlement Administration made it easier for migrant workers from Arkansas and Oklahoma to settle in California. However, the plan was met with a lot of pushback from the Californians. Like much of FDR's programs, this relief effort was viewed as socialist and un-American. Its successor, the Farm Security Administration (FSA), was established in 1937 and aimed to combat rural poverty during the Great Depression by providing loans, resettlement assistance, and agricultural education to struggling farmers. It worked to improve living conditions for tenant farmers, sharecroppers, and migrant laborers, while also supporting cooperative farming initiatives. Referring back to one of our previous discussions, this program aimed to give a human face to the plight through photographs and documentaries. 

    While migration did help the farmers, the Californians did not welcome the increasing number of farm labor. These migrants were derogatorily called Okies and Arkies. And because of their desperation to find work, they would get exploited and did not have the support they had back in the Midwest and Great Plains.

    -KSC

    Sixth discussion question: Worst Hard Time & A Square Meal

    As both books note, while around 400,000 people migrated to the West during the Great Depression, only about 16,000 of those were from the Dust Bowl. The majority were families and transients from the Midwest and Great Plains. In the midst of the launching of various New Deal programs to aid both farmers and the unemployed, what made the people move to the western states? How was their situation better or worse than those people who stayed in the Dust Bowl?

    Bookmarks! Created Tuesday, December 10 2024, 20:24 UTC

    previous comment--from Leah Huguenin

    The bravery--the idea of isolation and working and working for so little/no yield--is overwhelming. I think from my reading of novels about the era: The Grapes of Wrath and The Four Winds: my mind saw most of the people leave. The reality, so many were stuck, either financially or emotionally. I had heard from a friend about his own mother's experiences of the era and knew that some stayed; he told me that she would sweep every day before and after school--the extent of this statement was not appreciated until reading this book. (Nor could I ever appreciate the scope completely. 

    (Have you read Kristin Hannah's The Four Winds? Well worth it--and gave me a greater understanding of the hardships of what the "Okies" experienced when they did find the California border and the camps. 

    Bookmarks! Created Tuesday, December 10 2024, 19:48 UTC

    Women's responsibilities continued to center upon feeding the family and keeping the unit thriving. Often women would, because of shame and sincere desire to put their husbands and children first, deprive themselves of the necessary food/nutrients. (My own mother did this for us--though I did not truly understand nor appreciate it at the time. [I did not grow up in the Depression, but we were often counting pennies to get gas to get to work on payday.] I remember her eating the neck and backbone of the chicken [back in the day we cut up a whole chicken, didn't buy it already packaged as breast, thighs, legs, etc] so that we girls and Daddy would have the meatiest parts.)

    Mothers learned to stretch a dollar--and every morsel/scrap of food that could be had. (My grandmother kept that philosophy until her dying day [she was a young woman during the Depression]. One time when we went to the strawberry fields and found out that the farmer was going to plow under the onions later that day. We were given the opportunity to pick all we could--and we did!)

    The effects of the Depression--the Great Generation--seemed to permeate my grandmother's life. She was a strong woman who found ways to care for her family--food, no matter how sparse, was always available--often something one of the "boys" (my great uncles and uncles) had killed. Her home was always a revolving door of loved ones--that we all embraced.  

    Fourth Discussion Question: Worst Hard Time & A Square Meal

    In the midst of the Depression in 1933, Eleanor Roosevelt wrote a book titled It's Up to the Women. Thinking more broadly, what exactly was "up to the women" during the Depression? What new roles and tasks did women assume, both inside and outside of the home, to support their families and American families in general?

    Bookmarks! Created Tuesday, December 10 2024, 19:27 UTC

    Please add your name. 

    The bravery--the idea of isolation and working and working for so little/no yield--is overwhelming. I think from my reading of novels about the era: The Grapes of Wrath and The Four Winds: my mind saw most of the people leave. The reality, so many were stuck, either financially or emotionally. I had heard from a friend about his own mother's experiences of the era and knew that some stayed; he told me that she would sweep every day before and after school--the extent of this statement was not appreciated until reading this book. (Nor could I ever appreciate the scope completely. 

    (Have you read Kristin Hannah's The Four Winds? Well worth it--and gave me a greater understanding of the hardships of what the "Okies" experienced when they did find the California border and the camps. 

    Bookmarks! Created Tuesday, December 10 2024, 19:24 UTC

    Please add your name. 

    The people who stayed in the high plains during the Dust Bowl were desperate, in constant danger and hopeless.  They came to the region full of hopes and it looked promising in the beginning.  Then circumstances dashed their hopes and dreams.  They had come to the area because they were promised tree ined streets buth those streets were soon covered in layers of grit.  Their American dreams became nightmares on a Biblical scale.

    For example, Caroline Henderson, a Holyoke graduate when precious few women did that, wrote Letters from the Dust Bowl for the Atlantic Monthly.  Her descriptions of their everyday lives made me ashamed of how much I complained about wearing masks during Covid.  At least we didn't have to put Vaseline in our noses or sweep "ripples" of grit from our kitchens.

    Poor Hazel Shaw faced having another baby after losing Ruth Neil and her Grandma Lou on the same day.  The story of Ruth Neil's birth and then her burial and Grandma Lou's painted such a vivid picture.  Then poor Hazel was sealed into her house and still wasn't safe.  In the end she left with her "dignity intact."

    Doc Dawson's son, John, was startled and angry when he returned in the mid-30s to what had been his home.  His father, however, help tight to the idea that things would soon be better even with his health failing and his money gone.  The younger Dawson believed the people had done this to themselves.  "The nesters who had chased away the cowboys, the real estate promoters, the people who subdivided the XIT and Dawson's own father who carved up his own little piece of the panhandle only to have it become a collection point for tumbleweeds." were party to the destruction of the plains.

    Then Roosevelt was elected President.  He sent Hugh Bennett to investigate.  Bennett blieved the plains could be saved.  He used his scientific know-how, his determination and Roosevelt's backing to make progress toward ending the misery.  Congress was slow to believe things were as bad as they were.  Bennett's report made it clear that things had to change.  They no longer could cling to the belief that nature was solely to blame and that nature alone would repair the plains.  Man played a major role in this disaster and had to take a role in repairing it.

    Before reading these books my knowledge of the Dust Bowl was limited to the mention of it in history classes and the black and white photos i had seen.  Learning about these individuals brought mental images to my mind that I can not erase.  As sad as these stories were they remind us that the human spirit is capable of great things and that Americans before us survived much worse than we have.  There is hope yet.

    Bookmarks! Created Tuesday, December 10 2024, 17:55 UTC

    Many felt that the only option for a better life was to move. Certainly, "the grass was greener" on the other side of the country. Utopia would be found and the suffering of the Depression could be alleviated, if only. . . 

    The "if-only" led to grave disappointment. Families were disrupted, people were ostracized as a wave of xenophobia  against their own countrymen/women escalated in the Western states. Resources all over America were drained. The transients who wished to escape the Dust Bowl were left being more and more transient. As the reality of the Dust Bowl was made evident to the politicians in Washington, more relief was provided. There was a sense of unity for those who stayed the course--a sense of community for those who had known one another for generations--a camaraderie that help to bolster the emotions of the peoples in the communities.  

    Sixth discussion question: Worst Hard Time & A Square Meal

    As both books note, while around 400,000 people migrated to the West during the Great Depression, only about 16,000 of those were from the Dust Bowl. The majority were families and transients from the Midwest and Great Plains. In the midst of the launching of various New Deal programs to aid both farmers and the unemployed, what made the people move to the western states? How was their situation better or worse than those people who stayed in the Dust Bowl?

    Bookmarks! Created Tuesday, December 10 2024, 17:34 UTC

    --This is from Heather Rowell, by the way. 

    It’s complicated trying to describe the people who stayed in the high plains during the Dust Bowl. At first, you want to claim they are stubborn; between the barren farms, endless work, privation, and the sickness from the never-ending dust blown about by the winds, you would expect people to pack up and go somewhere else. How could they choose that for themselves? It’s easy to negatively judge people when all you know are the facts of their existence and not them, as people, if that makes sense. 

    Reading their stories, you start seeing these figures as "real" humans and you sympathize with them as they struggle through the hardships above. Some stories really affect you when you read about them, like the woman in Kansas who “thought of killing her child to spare the baby the cruelty of Armageddon” (Egan 204), and the story of Hazel Shaw, who watched her baby daughter Ruth Nell horrifically sicken over the course of a year and die in a hospital ward following another duster (193-197). It's emotionally wrenching just reading this, and her family had to live it. A family’s investments and lives are so wrapped up in the land and businesses by now that many couldn’t leave without being homeless, jobless, and starving in a new location. At least in the high plains, they have a roof, family, and friends nearby--and if family or friends get sick, you have the responsibility of caring for them, just like they’d care for you.

    Your description of the people begins to change after you sympathize with them. Words like determined, resilient, resourceful, and even optimistic become your new characteristics. Ike Osteen and his family’s story is just one example of resilience, determination, and optimism in these chapters. Ike kept up with school attendance and graduated second in his class; his mother said, when he handed her his diploma, he had done “what no Osteen has ever done” (239). Ike’s teachers kept the school open, getting paid with grocery scrip that, eventually, many stores wouldn’t even honor. While Ike did leave after that, he still accomplished a thing to be proud of despite everything that was stacked against him. Optimism is also evident in some of Don Hartwell’s diary entries. While most of the examples provided in The Worst Hard Time focus on the desperation of the situation, some entries showed some hope. The Feb 29 entry, for example, reminisces on the beauty of the land, flowers, and birdsong (246), and the Oct 2 entry marvels at hearing the World Series on the radio: “Who would have thought it possible 25 years ago!” (248).

    Reading these detailed accounts of the people who experienced the Dust Bowl makes the history of it come alive. These are no longer isolated facts about “topics” like Black Sunday or drought, they are now lived experiences by people with names, faces, families, and lives.

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