The Dust Bowl was a name for places where droughts caused severe dust storms. They are mostly common in places such as Texas and Nebraska. They can cause severe choking dust. The Dust Bowl intensified the Great Depression because of families turning to farming and migration for better work and living conditions. Only forty-three percent of people were doing farm work before they migrated. In 1934, 35 million acres of land were now useless because of farming. At the end of 1939, regular rainfall returned, ending the Dust Bowl. In Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma around 2.5 million people left. People usually did not travel far, mostly interstate migration. It was one of the largest migrations in American history. Refugees from the Dust Bowl were dubbed as Okies. In the 1939 novel, Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck used the Okies in the book. Dorothea Lange who photographed the migrant mother came out there after seeing what happened. Even television shows nowadays, have been set in the Dust Bowl. The poem I chose is Langston Hughes "Dust Bowl". "The land wants me to come back to handful of dust in autumn" (Hughes) He mentions the land and that it wants him to come back. This is a metaphor for people wanting to leave after the Dust Bowl happened. He also mentions handfuls of dust in autumn. The dust was a direct comparison to what happened. "To a raindrop in the palm of my hand in spring."(Hughes) After everything that happened, finally rainfall was coming back. The rain brought people back. In conclusion, the Dust Bowl was a huge event that affected everyone who went through it. Langston Hughes writes about the signific of it and what happened during it.
Works Cited
The Dust Bowl https://www.history.com/topics/great-depression/dust-bowl
Dust Bowl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl#Geographic_characteristics_and_…
Langston Hughes "Dust Bowl" https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=22886