A period of severe dust storms in the 1930s that devastated the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies, driven by a combination of severe drought and farming practices that stripped away natural topsoil. Drought came in three waves, in 1934, 1936 and 1939 to 1940, and the crisis displaced more than 500,000 Americans and drove roughly 3.5 million people to migrate out of the Plains states, becoming a defining event of the Great Depression era.
Facts
Disputed
Death TollNo official period death count exists for the 1930s Great Plains. The commonly cited figure, drawn from period reports of so-called dust pneumonia among infants, children and the elderly in the worst-hit counties, is roughly 7,000, though historians treat it as a rough estimate rather than a verified total. 1 Estimates in secondary sources range from the hundreds to several thousand; no contemporary official mortality register for the affected counties survives to settle the figure. Magnitude or ScaleDrought persisted as long as eight years in parts of the High Plains 1 LocationAmerican and Canadian prairies, centered on the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Sources
1. Dust Bowl (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationLead sectionQuote, Lead section
The phenomenon was caused by a combination of natural factors (severe drought) and human-made factors.
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