blog 2 again

                                                   The dust bowl winds started in 1932 but the Dust Bowl got its name from the horrendous winds were starting to begin in 1935. The primary area it affected was the southern Plains. “The northern Plains were not hit so badly but the drought, the blowing dust, and the decline of agriculture in the region had a nationwide effect”. The wind "turned day into night" and was so strong it picked up the topsoil on the ground and blew it away in large clouds of dust. The cause of the soil blowing away was poor farming techniques that ruined the topsoil. At the same time, the increase in farming activity placed greater strain on the land. As the naturally occurring grasslands of the southern Great Plains were replaced with cultivated fields, the rich soil lost its ability to retain moisture and nutrients and began to erode. The displaced farmers were forced to look for work elsewhere and became the migrants described in John Steinbeck's, grapes of wrath. Families from Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Nevada and Arkansas, packed what they could or what was big enough to fit in cars and trucks and headed west. Most were aiming for California where they would become a class of ALL migrant farmers, following the crops during the harvesting season. That reads (more and more farmers gave up or were forced off of their land). “In addition, the relentless march of new tractors meant that the farmers who were able to scrape together enough money to buy a tractor could buy out their neighbors” so some people had to live off their neighbors.  The plight of the Okies and other plains migrants caught the sympathy of people across the country, “This was because these migrants were white, in contrast to the Mexican and Filipino workers who supplied the "factory" farms with the seasonal labor needed before and after okies arrived”. The okie’s also came in family groups and were in desperate straights, living in tents or out of the back of a car or truck. Some went to cities. But many decided to head west. In fact, during the 30s hundreds of thousands left the plains for the WEST COAST. So many migrated from Oklahoma that they were called the "Okies" in the popular press. For years, California, “Oregon and Washington had been growing. At the end the dust bowl hurt a lot of people especially the Okies”.