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?

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  

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?

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?

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. 

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?

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. 

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.

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?

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.