During the 1930's, the dust bowl plowed through the Great Plains, causing mass destruction of farms and towns. The cause was overgrazing and over plowing of the land, and when the wind blew, it took all of the topsoil and crops with it. Dust went into houses, suffocated and blinded animals, and made farming in the 1930's extremely difficult. The dust clouds could reach 8,000 feet high, and were miles across. This astonishing image, courtesy of the United States Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 'Dust Storm Approaches Texas Town' in 1935 provides an insight into the terror that people in rural areas felt as a dust cloud like this approached.
This image was called 'Migrant agricultural worker's family. Seven children without food. Mother aged thirty-two. Father is a native Californian. Nipomo, California' by Dorothea Lange in February 1936 represents the hardship faced by rural Americans. If you look at this woman's worried, wrinkled face, their ragged clothes and messy hair, and poverty-ridden surroundings, you will understand their desperation. Overproduction and low prices after WWI left farmers searching for new opportunities but finding none.
The dust bowl left farmers abandoning their farms and homes to seek a better life.