1. Sample Slide with Image
1) Describe what you see in this picture.
2) When and where do you think this picture was taken?
Explain your answer.

2. The Dust Bowl

3. The Dust Bowl refers to a period of severe dust storms and soil erosion in the Great Plains during the 1930’s
This region included parts of Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Colorado and smaller parts of New Mexico and Nebraska.

4. The Dust Bowl

5. Dust Storms
There were more than 300 dust storms, also known as “Black Blizzards”, between 1933 and 1938.
These storms often featured fast moving clouds of dust several miles wide that covered farms and homes, destroying crops and made people sick.
One of the areas hardest hit was the Oklahoma Panhandle.

6. Dust Storms

7. Displacement and Migration
Migrant family in San Francisco, 1935
Farmer leveling dust hills in Texas, 1938 7

8. Central Historical Question
What caused the Dust Bowl?
Was it a natural disaster or was it caused by people and actions?

9. Hooverville's
With poverty and homelessness increasing during the depression many of the homeless traveled in box cars and lived in shantytowns named “Hooverville’s. This was in mock honor of their president

10. Bonus Army/March
Summer of 1932, unemployed WWI veterans marched to Washington D.C. demanding immediate payment of bonus’ promised them at a later date (1945)

11. Continued…
They were joined by thousands of other veterans and their families who camped in shacks near the Capitol
Congress failed to pass the bonus bill
Two veterans were killed in a clash with police
Hoover ordered the army to break up the encampment

12. Mistake #2 for Hoover
General Douglas MacArthur the armies chief of staff used tear gas and tanks to destroy the shantytown and drove the veterans from Washington
Many felt Hoover was heartless and uncaring.