I learned a lot, but I have more questions? What happened to the Black & Native American populations during this time? This story appears to be missing huge segments. How did Black people survive this time during the Jim Crow era? How did native Americans survive? Was more of their land taken or given back? Were they around? Was there a moment of peace because everyone was suffering? Or were demographic relationships more strained as everyone fought for scraps?
@@joyouknow5385 You're funny. Trying to score virtue signaling points. African Americans made up virtually no percentage of the population in these areas at that time (still don't). So this doesn't really have anything to do with their story or plight. During the great depression, yes there is much history there, but this isn't about that.
Hi Simon, Love your videos, they’ve made solitude during lockdown much more bearable. Thank you. I suggest you check out Chysauster, near Penzance, in Cornwall. It’s a late Iron Age village of 8 or 9 courtyard houses. It’s a stunning, hill top location (about 20 miles from my home) & I think it’s every bit as worthy of your attention as, say, Skara Brae, the Dust Bowl or the Pyramids. 🌸🙂
When I was a child in Oklahoma in the 1960s most roads and fields had a border of trees which had been planted to break the wind and prevent erosion. Most of those have now been cut down for a variety of reasons. Apparently people now believe the conditions that caused the Dust Bowl can't occur again.
Here in eastern Kansas there are still a lot of trees planted on the borders of fields. I hope they don't get the idea of cutting down all those trees around here.
My Dad was 17 and living in Oklahoma when the Depression hit, followed the next year by the Dust Storms that swept the state. His family was in the oil business which was completely wiped out in the market crash, plunging the family from moderate wealth to penniless overnight. His father died later that same year, leaving just him and his year older brother to fend for themselves, since my Dad's mother died in childbirth when he was born. The two brothers stripped the rear body off their Model T Ford, turning it into a truck and then drove to California to find work, only to return to Oklahoma in 1940. Neither my Dad or my Uncle talked much about the Dust Bowl except to say it was the biggest disaster they had ever experienced.
Your user name, and story made me think of the Woody Guthrie song “Dust Pneumonia Blues”. Hope your dad and uncle lived good lives after the Dust Bowl. ✌🏻🇺🇸
My dad and his family were affected by the dust bowl in both Nebraska and Iowa and ultimately migrated to Colorado's front range. A lot of the children who grew up in this then dealt with WWII. The amount of hardship this generation saw is just unbelievable.
That's why the USA came out of it so strong. People had to work hard and fight for their survival making the general population stronger as a whole. A stark contrast to the entitled, lazy useless shits today.
The depression, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, civil rights marches, space exploration, etc. this is why they are called the Greatest Generation. Those of us born after them have not had to deal with half the tragedies we think we have.
I was born and raised in Boise City, Oklahoma. In the west side of the panhandle. That's where the picture of the man and his kids walking to their was taken at. Decades after the dust bowl you could still find dirt from the dust bowl in buildings and houses that were still around. A couple of years ago it was drier than it was during the dust bowl time. There were constant dust storms but because of better farming practices nothing like the dust bowl happened.
We ranch in New Mexico where this happen. There is still dust in the walls in all the building that were standing then. It was so fine it got into everything. One of our barns still had rolled up cow hides in the rafters from when the government came in and shot all the animals. They paid 5 dollars a head and shot everything alive to stop them from starving
During the 25 years I've spent in Oklahoma I've heard countless tales of the Dust Bowl, but I've not heard much that you've presented here in this video. Thanks, Simon!
My family is from Oklahoma, with my grandma being born in '35 as the youngest of 5. She missed a lot of the worst parts, but she can still remember the dust storms hitting, and the feeling of sand all over them and everything in their house.
Yeah, this was one of things I was taught in school (I grew up in western Texas) - that the banks came through when the land prices bottomed out, and bought everything they could get their hands on... then found ways to "persuade" most of the remaining families to sell and scram. One of my grandfathers had a very bitter attitude about the whole thing, though he himself was a tiny child at that time (he was born 1932) his family was devastated. He would say sometimes that the corporate farmers had sold their souls and the souls of their neighbors for a few dollars an acre.
And then along comes 1979 and they run a bunch more farmers off the land. Over a decade after that before the family farm made any good money. I love those who never lived the farm life but love to crucify the industry. Most of the things people hate are at the corporate farms. For a family farm, that land and it's animals are their life and is treated with respect.
@@atodaso1668 Isn't it something? There were some out there making bad decisions and we're heading towards the end on their own. But more than one good operator lost their farm because of nothing more than the banks panicked and jerked the rug out from under the farmer. It was hard to watch, as an old farm boy. I loved the life, and would of gladly gone back. But it wasn't in the cards.
My grandmother's an Oakie who just turned 90, and she's been smoking like a fish since she was 13. Her lungs are healthy. I don't know how. Her doctor wants to take her body for science when she dies.
Dusty lungs, lead paint, leaded gasoline, trans fat, stocks crashed, WWII, communism, no seat belts, gun safety class in school, no minimum wage, drinking from hose, get spanked by mom and dad, nuclear crisis....good old days...you'll live. Newer generation : Trump has mean tweets : "He's killing us!!! REEEEEEEE..."
My grandfather was a teenager in the great depression. His dad would leave for weeks at a time to look for work not telling anyone where he was going. I guess he always found something. But he became disabled when my grandfather was a teenage boy. My grandfather had to go into the woods with a mule and a crosscut saw and build a cabin for their family to live in. Snow blew in through the cracks in the winter. He had a model T car one time and gave it back to the dealership because he had no money to pay for it. The dealer ship offered him another year. My grandfather replied if you gave me 10 years still couldn't pay for it. Driving to town in an old beat up car they would sometimes go through a whole box of tire patches.
My parents were dust bowl survivors. My father, who was born in Guymon, Oklahoma (middle of the bowl!) in 1909, told me of the hardships, and about how he and his brothers and sisters all moved to Delano, California in abject poverty. He met my mother there, and they married in 1936. One of the big lessons they learned, and applied in California, was the process of crop rotation, which helps keep the soil fertile, and of plowing under some crops to make compost, then leaving the land fallow for a season to rejuvenate the soil. These people built California into the nation's provider by the late 40's. Now, of course, it's all mechanized and corporate farming, not a bunch of subsistence farmers. But I'm proud of my "Okie" heritage!
Intensive monocropping of cotton and grasses (wheat, maize, barley) stripped the soil of nitrogen and ruined its tilts. Many farmers were share ripping for large agribusiness, so they had to plant what the bosses ordered and take the prices offered. If any of this sounds familiar ... yeah. Midwestern farmers face similar pressures today, only hitting break-evens via insane yields on single crops, year after year, and only managing that thru buying expensive proprietary seed and dumping massive fertilizer and herbicide inputs onto their fields. Then selling to the big cartels. Farmers *know* it is bad for the soil, but they are trapped in the biz model, just like the Dust Bowl farmers.
My father spent his childhood in the Dust Bowl/Great Depression in northwest Kansas. In boot camp he had to have an emergency appendectomy, and the doctor kept him in the hospital to allow him to put on weight before he rejoined his unit. The doctor told him his underweight condition was quite typical of servicemen that came out of the Dustbowl.
There's a new book that came out called "The four winds" by Kristin Hannah. It's written from the perspective of a family living through the dustbowl. I really enjoyed it and would highly recommend reading it.
My parents and extended family fled Oklahoma in 1940, and I was born in a tent in a howling blizzard that winter (40/41) near Yosemite California. That spring the family moved to San Joaquin Valley to work in the fields and grape vineyards -- believe it or not, a town called Lodi. I remember family members talking about the "Dust Bowl" and what happened after.
My grandparents both grew up on farms in Oklahoma during that time period. My great-aunt remembers being caught in a dust storm as a child as her father drove them back home. He stopped the car and held her as the storm blew over. She remembers how dark it became & how scared she was but she felt safer with her Daddy there. I’m sure there are other stories she & my grandpa could’ve shared but I never thought to ask before they died.
Ken Egan, author of "The Worst Hard Times" (and I think he was in Burn's docu) also did a very good video on the Dust Bowl. Sorry I can't think of it's name.
I'm from upper midwest Texas near Oklahoma. This video hit very close to home. Even now dust storms are more common in my home town than rain. We were in a drought for 7 years growing up. The sky turns brown an you know to get in the house. Never ending dusting and everything outside is caked in it. Tumble weeds stuck under everyone's cars and winds so strong they blow you over.
My parents lived through this. They said it was devastating and that if it had not been for FDR's policies helping to establish practices to minimize soil erosion as well as helping those in need it would have been even much worse.
i said it before i say it again: *The Modern Shipping Container* and its impact on global trade needs an episode on geographics!, nothing has changed the planet like these millions of steel boxes traveling the globe every day!
@@baronvonjo1929 and nowadays boarding on a cargo ship across an ocean is like 10x the cost of flying, thus only a rare novelty and not practical anymore :( I'd love to go to europe or asia by boat
Thanks for topic! Both sets of my grandparents spoke of growing up among the dust storms. How scary of was for them as teenagers, but how hard it was on their parents and family. My dad's parents decided that thereust be someplace better than that he'll hole and did move out west to washington, but my mom's parents stuck it out. I never truly knew what caused it. But now I do! My grandmother just said they later figured out weather cycles, but at the time they were farming in ways they thought was best. If my grandmother were still alive, she would've appreciated this info that explained her childhood.
Biographics, Geographics, Mega Projects and Side Projects is like Simon being an awesome school teacher. Business Blaze however is like when said school teacher gets home on Friday night and just cuts loose. The amount of content this guy and his team produces week to week is astounding.
I asked my grandpa about this point in history. He wasn't alive yet but his dad was. Out here in our nowhere state we just heard about it. But on clear days, on a tall hilltop, with a good view west you could see dark clouds in the distance. Never moving, never growing just there. Old-timers said it was the wrath of greedy, God fearing men, wanting too much too quickly. To hear my grandpa tell this gives me goosebumps. Great video Mr Simon
My great grandparents were farmers in South Dakota at this time, many of their sheep and cows were killed but luckily my ancestors planted a tree line around a century prior which prevented much of the topsoil from blowing away.
Having lived in Death Valley, I can understand the dust and sand storms. We had dust and sand that went through every crack and crevasse in our trailer.
Thank you for enlighten me about my fathers youth. He didn't talk much about it but he was one of those "Okies" that fled to California and succeeded to build a good life for his family.
My dad was born in Oklahoma during the dust bowl. His parents stayed until their passing. I don't recall my dad or grandparents talking much about the dust bowl. Any time it was brought up, there were teary eyed references to those being very hard times. Thanks for an excellent report on one of the biggest disasters to ever happen in North America's recorded history.
Excellent video. I am a 5th generation Kansan. I was also trained to be a history teacher. You did an excellent job. Most people do not realize that the native prairie grass had roots that were over 5 feet or more deep. This was need the reach water in this climate. Droughts still happen. We just know how to deal with them more effectively now. Now wind farms are spring up all over this region. A crop uses the wind that does not water.
My grandmother lived through both this and the Great Depression. Some of her stories were bonkers when I was younger but hearing this... Grandma I'm sorry
It's more like the land was fighting back. People farmed the only way they knew how, which didn't work well for where they were farming. A drought was only the tipping point for a disaster that was destined to occur.
@@lonnarheaj truth, but also add in the fact that we literally went from old single blade plows, to a straight line of 5 rotating plow blades, we could till up more ground quicker and more of it.
@@Dr-Weird @Christopher Justice.... the land was never yours to begin with. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 and the Homestead Act of 1862 were the seeds that gave birth to the dust bowl. Settlers had no clue, knowledge, experience and whom never have seen it before, destroyed the Great Plains in one generation 1862-1930.
@@gomezjosepha.4860 Oh, yes. Let us give the land back to the indigenous peoples, move back to Europe or wherever we came from, take the blacks back to their homeland, and everything will be hunky dory. Sounds good to me. Feel better now?
Grapes of Wrath was a great book that showcases the life of a migrant family from Oklahome to California. The story really shined a light on the hardships my great grandparents and great-great grandparents experienced.
@@SolemnHeretic The trick is we have to achieve the technology to reasonably access and extract space resources BEFORE we use up the Earth's limited resources. Earth herself is humanity's biggest boundary to overcome.
Growing up much later in the northern great plains (1970-80s), I remember my dad showing me fence lines that had been buried 50 years prior and his stories of the dreaded "Snirt" storms of the day (snow and dirt combined). Many of the tree lines exist to this day and of course, farming practices have greatly changed.
I met a number of Okies and their descendants while living in California during the 1950's to 1970's. I lack the words to describe their plight! Thank you for this brief reminder.
Indeed, the Western plains of Canada were severely affected by the drought too. In part the creation of the government run health care systems that would eventually be across Canada would start in the Western provinces.
I'm in Southern Alberta as a transplant from my beloved BC.... seeing all the barren farmland without a tree for miles is not only heartwrenching for personal reason but when the dust storms here kick up, it's not too far of a stretch of the imagination knowing that another 5-10 years of the drought we're having, will render this place from a commercial farm wasteland, into a dusty hellscape.
I found this interesting, because as a native Oklahoman, we learn about the problems we caused by not understanding what we did to the soil and about the reforms and new farming practices implemented. We learn that we obtained the name of "Okie" (ironically I am from Muskogee like the song) as a slang from migration but this is the first I've heard it was derogatory. We generally see it as a sense of pride that we are willing to work for what we have. Then again... I went to public school.
Because the whole country was rocked by the depression California also felt it. So the influx of immigrates from other states lead to conflict. But I also think there was more to it. I think many people blamed "Okies" for the Dustbowl because of the poor farming techniques people were using on the great plains. Even if a lot of those "farmers" came from out of state.
Yeah the other states used it as a derogatory slang. Basically the poorer working class got really pissed when all the dust bowl refugees showed up and were willing to work for less than the natives were. You see this punching down pattern repeated with essentially every single great migration that happened in the US.
When I think of okie I thinkof some of the lame brain ones from Oklahoma which really is all of them its a fighting word if you ask me but be proud enough to fight it.
I remember being first introduced to the word "Okie" in "Grapes of Wrath", and it impressed me very much because it is kinda forgotten now and a relic of a very specific time, while many other derogatory words (that can be traced back just as far) are very much alive and well-used today.
I lived in Oklahoma. There are abandoned buildings from that time period you can see pretty frequently. Some of them it looks like they were going to come back, like they just got up to go to work or school and never came back. Time froze
@@micahphilson The Roarin' 20s had nothing to do with the Dust Bowl. It was about the prosperity of the 1920s. The Dust Bowl happened in the 1930s as the economy was collapsing.
@@brentfuhrman148 it's not offensive now but her generation it was definitely a slur like they use for Mexicans. We're from the Northeast OK so she was dustbowl adjacent.
That Insult was still being used up till The 1970's, when I was a Kid. My Grandfather Owned it and laughed it off. They were from Guyman, They kept their land, but, came to California to find jobs, He ran a gas station untill becoming a Fireman.
@@LTCAproductions you're good to use it we've commoditized it. Like Sooners were cheats who snuck in early for the land grab, that was Native land, but is one of the most popular teams with Natives from NEOK. Just don't use it as an insult.
I first heard about the dust bowl through listening to Woody Guthrie's music about 30 years ago. The photos really put his words into context. Good job Simon.
@@Kstang09 If you say so. I guess it's easier to just blame a republican for anything bad that ever happened in the country. Who needs proof or sources right?
My family was among the 250 that settled in California. We should really be teaching more detailed history in high school I had no idea about any of this Growing up
My father's family migrated from Oklahoma during this time. They found jobs in both the agricultural and fishing/canning industries. The stories my father used to tell could've been a blueprint for Mr. Steinbeck. They certainly hit a lot of the same notes.
We were taught this in school, most kids do not pay attention and a lot of teachers do not care enough to get kids attention. The government just cuts more funding to schools because WAR!
There's a fantastic multipart series on this I watched many moons ago, it is tragic and absolutely heartwrenching, but beautiful and done with the utmost care. I loved it, thank you for reminding me of it!
There was a picture of a dust storm I took in Afghanistan (nothing I had ever seen before) I showed it to WW2 vets from my hometown regiment. One of them shouted that it was just like Saskatchewan in the 30’s! Crazy.
@@jkwacker8225 Ha ha, that's crazy. I know my grand parents talked about the dust. I'm in Manitoba and we got it too, although probably not as bad as Saskatchewan. I can imagine dust storms pretty bad in Afghanistan!
A great book to read on this subject is "The Worst Hard Times". I live just to the east of the dust bowl area. This area was affected by the huge walls of dust that settled into the area. A lot of that land was not suited for tillage farming. It was however very productive when it was first broken out but the fertility was quickly depleted as there was no fertilizer then. Some who farmed this area didn't live there. They would buy up lots of acres and go out and work it and plant it and then go back home just hoping for a crop. My mother's brothers and sisters went west to look for better opportunity and did pretty well. My dad's family were doing pretty well here and didn't have to leave, even buying land during this time and during the depression.
That is a great book. I never forgot the young couple who just waited to long to leave. To walk away from their home. And their baby’s lungs just couldn’t handle the dust and the baby died.
So glad you mentioned Woody Guthrie. There's so much history wrapped up in his songs. He was instrumental in helping to develope his sons career (Arlo Guthrie) but was also a great inspiration for another great folk singer, Bob Dylan. Woody is a great American icon.
One of the more fascinating slow motion disasters in US history that created a refugee situation that most Americans think only happens in other places. Timothy Egan wrote a great book about it (The Worst Hard Time) and Ken Burns of course did a fantastic documentary. Both are worth checking out for those curious to deep dive into this history.
It really is amazing to think of how much "history" happened within one generation. A child born in 1910 would have experienced WWI (not directly if they were in the US mid west, granted) a childhood in the roaring '20s, the dustbowl/great depression when they were in their mid adulthood then world war II and watching humans walk on the moon. All of this before they even retired. I wonder how many people in all of history would have seen so many events like this. Even today, with all of the events we are constantly flooded with informaiton about, it feels like our lives are so much more plain/safe/easy. I don't know if that is sad or a great triumph. Somehow, I don't think it is going to last much longer.
@@Terri_MacKay It is. In the wider view, you can see she’s also holding an infant, it’s not just the two kids at her shoulders. Three little lives so dependent on her, and so little hope. It’s hard to look at, but also hard to look away.
My great grandmother lived through the dust bowl in the Texas panhandle. She told us about how theyd line up the whole family monthly and pull strings of dust out of each others throats, like dirty pearl necklaces she said.
A term I heard in the San Joaquin for some of these folks was "toasted Okies". Now, I´ve heard it adopted by children from mixed marriages of all sorts who live in the rural areas there, but, I don´t like it. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth for many, many reason, among them, my moms´s sister having married a first nations man and many of her cousins and mine having Native American blood. Plus, refugeees from the Dust Bowl were treated so brutally.
My Grandmothers both mentioned to me about the dust reaching northern Mississippi a few times covering things like peoples cars, farm equipment and houses, plus all the trees.
Man, the more I hear about the Great Depression and all of the garbage that happened during those 20 years or so, the more I'm glad I live in 2020. And that's saying something.
And farmers today are turning pastures into fields and tearing out trees at an alarming rate. We need more pasture and trees in them. But raising cattle isn't prosperous enough so they turn pastures into fields to make money. We need to make grassfed beef more profitable so its more feasible to keep pasture. Maybe with some type of incentives we can get more trees and pasture back
@@Scootermagoo The Sahara was green ten thousand years ago. There's cave art in the region depicting people and megafuana living in lush environments similar to the Okavango. Yes the Sahara naturally cycles between lush and arid over eons but overgrazing by domesticated animals and over farming by humans has made it much larger than previous cycles.
@@barneyrubble4293 Yes I know and guess what, throughout human history it's been a desert due to weather and climate changes, We didn't cause it per se but as the midwest shows we can cause it without foresight. We didn't farm the largest desert on earth to being a desert, it's been one since man found northern africa.
My grandfather grew up in SW Iowa, hour from Missouri and an hour from Omaha. He once mentioned to me his mother used to hang wet towels in the windows during washing. They were bone dry within just a few minutes, due to the strong dry winds kicking up from Kansas. Always found that amazing.
Late September had a bad shake up, then followed Black Thursday (10/24) and the really bad Black Tuesday (10/29.) The market and economy didn't recover from 10/29 until 1940.
When I am curious about an event or person in history. I go straight to Simon for an in-depth and thorough lesson on whatever subject I am interested in. Thanks mate, I enjoy your content. 🙂
“The Four Winds” by Kristin Hannah is an amazing historical fiction happening during the Dust Bowl. Highly recommend it! I loved this video thank you!!!
4 года назад+5
The music in the background, at the start, is regularly used on YT channel, That Chapter. "Hi, I'm Mike... and in this video..."
Well done, Simon. Your research was solid and I found little, if anything to complain about. Neither of us were born yet, at the time, so, like you, I know only what I was told by my teachers. Even my parents, who were children during the 1930s, had no direct experience with the dustbowl, having grown up in Minnesota and St. Louis, Missouri. By the time they met, married and then moved to Oklahoma City, in 1950, the dustbowl, which had only affected the panhandle (the high plains), was over with. Despite spending most of my life in Oklahoma, I've yet to visit the region, which bears no resemblance to the rest of Oklahoma, which varies from lushly wooded rolling plains to mountainous regions and forests. You did an excellent job of exposing affects of the dustbowl on the people who lived through it and sought a better life in California. I was born in Oklahoma City in 1952 and even I have been called an "Okie," usually by ignorant people who have never been to Oklahoma and know nothing of its history, people, culture or geography. I was the first of my family to be born there and my ancestors had emmigrated from County Down, Northern Ireland in 1774, settling in Pennsylvania and, over the course of a few generations, Wisconsin and Minnesota. My life has had nothing whatever to do with anything rural. I'm a city boy. Oklahoma City is the capitol of the state of Oklahoma, as well as its most populous city (over a million people in its metropolitan area), contrary to the ignorant perception of people from the East and West coasts, who believe it to be a rural small town. Oh, one thing, though: the region has been known as the Southwest since the 1700s, when everything west of the Appalachians was referred to as "the West." It was only after settlement of the West Coast that anyone began referring to the middle of the country as the Midwest, owing to the fact that the West was largely unsettled during the early nineteenth century.
This was a well done and informative video. I was surprised you didn't mention the Navajo livestock reduction in the 1930s, though. It was pretty horrendous on the government's part and was supposedly related to the dust bowl. Maybe you guys can do a future video about that subject?
Oklahoma native here. It's still ingrained in local society. I live in the eastern part of the state, and over here it wasn't as bad thanks to natural hills and rivers. However, I took a trip out west last year and came across abandoned towns and homesteads when I traveled far off the main highways. Even found an elderly couple who were born during the dust bowl and talked with them about life post-dust-bowl. It wasn't easy for them and still to this day they live very conservatively, saving every single penny and buying as much land as they can, keeping trees planted and not farming every acre anymore. Its... its almost heartbreaking seeing people who were affected by it and hearing their stories of how they lost friends and siblings to the dust during the storms. Much like Simon mentioned, dust would cover towns during broad day light and not all teachers were smart enough to keep children indoors. Instead, some sent children home. The elder lady I met lost her brother to the dust, he ventured from school right before a storm and wasn't seen again until his body was found days later.
In my family, it was never forgotten. When one of us kids complained about anything, we'd get a lecture from Dad who survived the dust bowl storms in western Oklahoma.
I disagree. It's an event that's taught in school, resulted in starvation & migration at a previously unknown level in the US, was covered in great works of literature and photographic essays that are still shown today, and was the base for a number of government policies that still exist in some form.
My grandpa was born in 1930 in North Dakota. His dad homesteaded there from Indiana. They went back to Indiana because of the dust bowl. A few things I remember Grandpa telling me about his childhood in North Dakota: 1. He did mention seeing a dust storm coming. 2. They had to run a rope from the house to the barn so they wouldn't get lost in the snow. 3. One day Grandpa went to wait for his sister to come home from school. She apparently came home without them seeing each other. It was snowing. By the time they found him, it was a miracle he survived.
I was born in '41, raised on a small farm just east of Wichita. I recall what were probably two separate dust storm occurrences when I was 5 or six. Like in this report, our house ended up with about an inch of dust on the floors and some drifted dust outdoors. Didn't last long but were vividly etched in my memory from those days. By the late '40s, the storms were rare, never got to the intensity the previous years.
Yes! It's a real shame we weren't taught about it; I'm glad my kid is. There's a great book about the Depression and Dust Bowl in Canada, "Ten Lost Years," by Barry Broadfoot. In the early Seventies he realized that we were beginning to lose the people who had lived through it all, and drove across Canada collecting random people's stories about living through it. Definitely worth reading!!
I remember reading or hearing that the workers building the Empire State Building had to cover up to protect themselves from the Dust Bowl dirt that would sometimes pummel them during construction.
My Mom grew up in SW Wisconsin and remembers the dust storms blowing in from the Dust Bowl. They occasionally had to wear damp handkerchiefs over their face to prevent breathing it all in.
I love this video. It's my family history. My great grandfather bought 10,000 acres in 1914. My grandfather never talked about being at D day but he would tell all about the dust bowl days.
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I love your material! I have a history degree so I like all of it.
I learned a lot, but I have more questions? What happened to the Black & Native American populations during this time? This story appears to be missing huge segments. How did Black people survive this time during the Jim Crow era? How did native Americans survive? Was more of their land taken or given back? Were they around? Was there a moment of peace because everyone was suffering? Or were demographic relationships more strained as everyone fought for scraps?
@@joyouknow5385
You're funny.
Trying to score virtue signaling points.
African Americans made up virtually no percentage of the population in these areas at that time (still don't).
So this doesn't really have anything to do with their story or plight.
During the great depression, yes there is much history there, but this isn't about that.
Hi Simon, Love your videos, they’ve made solitude during lockdown much more bearable. Thank you.
I suggest you check out Chysauster, near Penzance, in Cornwall. It’s a late Iron Age village of 8 or 9 courtyard houses. It’s a stunning, hill top location (about 20 miles from my home) & I think it’s every bit as worthy of your attention as, say, Skara Brae, the Dust Bowl or the Pyramids. 🌸🙂
I would like to see a Geographics on Western Sahara.
When I was a child in Oklahoma in the 1960s most roads and fields had a border of trees which had been planted to break the wind and prevent erosion. Most of those have now been cut down for a variety of reasons. Apparently people now believe the conditions that caused the Dust Bowl can't occur again.
My dad was a tree planter with the CCC in the '30s. He said the same thing was going to happen again if they kept cutting them down.
I've seen many of the old "Hedge Rows" being removed here in Eastern Kansas since 2000. Makes ya wonder if history will be repeating itself.
"History repeats itself twice; first as a tragedy, then as a farce."
--Karl Marx.
Do we ever learn?
Here in eastern Kansas there are still a lot of trees planted on the borders of fields. I hope they don't get the idea of cutting down all those trees around here.
My Dad was 17 and living in Oklahoma when the Depression hit, followed the next year by the Dust Storms that swept the state. His family was in the oil business which was completely wiped out in the market crash, plunging the family from moderate wealth to penniless overnight. His father died later that same year, leaving just him and his year older brother to fend for themselves, since my Dad's mother died in childbirth when he was born. The two brothers stripped the rear body off their Model T Ford, turning it into a truck and then drove to California to find work, only to return to Oklahoma in 1940. Neither my Dad or my Uncle talked much about the Dust Bowl except to say it was the biggest disaster they had ever experienced.
Your user name, and story made me think of the Woody Guthrie song “Dust Pneumonia Blues”. Hope your dad and uncle lived good lives after the Dust Bowl. ✌🏻🇺🇸
Thanks for sharing your story. My grandpa lived through it (we still live in OK) and before his passing he never once talked about it.
Well, the dust storms didn't affect most of the state, primarily the high plains of the Panhandle.
And now people get upset about pronouns. Different breed back then, respect for your Dad and his family
Thanks for this story.
My dad and his family were affected by the dust bowl in both Nebraska and Iowa and ultimately migrated to Colorado's front range. A lot of the children who grew up in this then dealt with WWII. The amount of hardship this generation saw is just unbelievable.
And people think the world is oppressive now. We have innovated ourselves into an easy and convenient life.
That's why the USA came out of it so strong. People had to work hard and fight for their survival making the general population stronger as a whole. A stark contrast to the entitled, lazy useless shits today.
@@Bitchslapper316 ima be honest I am probably a lazy shit but at least I don’t get offended by everything like some people now
@@Bitchslapper316 Lazy my ass. You took the greatest age of prosperity they left us and ruined it for your own gain.
The depression, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, civil rights marches, space exploration, etc. this is why they are called the Greatest Generation. Those of us born after them have not had to deal with half the tragedies we think we have.
I was born and raised in Boise City, Oklahoma. In the west side of the panhandle. That's where the picture of the man and his kids walking to their was taken at. Decades after the dust bowl you could still find dirt from the dust bowl in buildings and houses that were still around. A couple of years ago it was drier than it was during the dust bowl time. There were constant dust storms but because of better farming practices nothing like the dust bowl happened.
I grew up in Boise City too. Class of ‘99
BULLSHIT , UNTIL 1960 HIGH TEMPERATURES WERE THE NORM .....NOTHING TO DO WITH FARMING PRACTICES OR CARBON IN THE ATMOSPHERE
Curious what some if the better farming practices are??
2:45 - Chapter 1 - Contributing factors
9:35 - Mid roll ads
10:45 - Chapter 2 - The storms begins
12:55 - Chapter 3 - Human impact
16:20 - Chapter 4 - Government response
17:30 - Chapter 5 - Post drought & cultural legacy
Thanks for these. I search for your comment on almost all his videos now to skip the sponsorship ads.
We ranch in New Mexico where this happen. There is still dust in the walls in all the building that were standing then. It was so fine it got into everything. One of our barns still had rolled up cow hides in the rafters from when the government came in and shot all the animals. They paid 5 dollars a head and shot everything alive to stop them from starving
They talk about that in the book “the worst hard time”. More in the Dalhart area but I’m sure it was in most of these areas.
@@99Z155 im 45 miles west of there
I’m a Sowers
@@civic9404 from where
@@sowerscattleco3484 Central Illinois farmland is where I was born and raised. I’ve since moved onto Northern Colorado near the Wyoming border.
During the 25 years I've spent in Oklahoma I've heard countless tales of the Dust Bowl, but I've not heard much that you've presented here in this video. Thanks, Simon!
My family is from Oklahoma, with my grandma being born in '35 as the youngest of 5. She missed a lot of the worst parts, but she can still remember the dust storms hitting, and the feeling of sand all over them and everything in their house.
The other impact was that small family farmers lost their lands to banks. This set the stage for mega- corporate farms later.
Yeah, this was one of things I was taught in school (I grew up in western Texas) - that the banks came through when the land prices bottomed out, and bought everything they could get their hands on... then found ways to "persuade" most of the remaining families to sell and scram. One of my grandfathers had a very bitter attitude about the whole thing, though he himself was a tiny child at that time (he was born 1932) his family was devastated. He would say sometimes that the corporate farmers had sold their souls and the souls of their neighbors for a few dollars an acre.
And then along comes 1979 and they run a bunch more farmers off the land. Over a decade after that before the family farm made any good money. I love those who never lived the farm life but love to crucify the industry. Most of the things people hate are at the corporate farms. For a family farm, that land and it's animals are their life and is treated with respect.
Peak capitalism.
@@ronfullerton3162 I love hearing the opinions of people that have never worked on or lived on a farm about how to run a farm.
@@atodaso1668 Isn't it something? There were some out there making bad decisions and we're heading towards the end on their own. But more than one good operator lost their farm because of nothing more than the banks panicked and jerked the rug out from under the farmer. It was hard to watch, as an old farm boy. I loved the life, and would of gladly gone back. But it wasn't in the cards.
I'm so impressed my 93 year old Grandma's lungs are okay after surviving the Dust Bowl in her youth! Her lungs are actually healthy even now😊
My Grandma is 92 years old and the same goes for her
My grandmother's an Oakie who just turned 90, and she's been smoking like a fish since she was 13. Her lungs are healthy. I don't know how. Her doctor wants to take her body for science when she dies.
God bless you and your family
Dusty lungs, lead paint, leaded gasoline, trans fat, stocks crashed, WWII, communism, no seat belts, gun safety class in school, no minimum wage, drinking from hose, get spanked by mom and dad, nuclear crisis....good old days...you'll live.
Newer generation : Trump has mean tweets : "He's killing us!!! REEEEEEEE..."
reminds me of my grandma who made it to 86 without loosing any of her teeth whatsoever!
that generation was just "better" then we are today 🤔😅
My grandfather was a teenager in the great depression. His dad would leave for weeks at a time to look for work not telling anyone where he was going. I guess he always found something. But he became disabled when my grandfather was a teenage boy. My grandfather had to go into the woods with a mule and a crosscut saw and build a cabin for their family to live in. Snow blew in through the cracks in the winter. He had a model T car one time and gave it back to the dealership because he had no money to pay for it. The dealer ship offered him another year. My grandfather replied if you gave me 10 years still couldn't pay for it. Driving to town in an old beat up car they would sometimes go through a whole box of tire patches.
Your great-grandparents would've been part of the generation known as the "Hard-timers" I think... Present for WWI, the great depression, and WWII.
"I will show you fear in a hand full of dust" my favorite line from anything to deal with the dust bowl.
My parents were dust bowl survivors. My father, who was born in Guymon, Oklahoma (middle of the bowl!) in 1909, told me of the hardships, and about how he and his brothers and sisters all moved to Delano, California in abject poverty. He met my mother there, and they married in 1936. One of the big lessons they learned, and applied in California, was the process of crop rotation, which helps keep the soil fertile, and of plowing under some crops to make compost, then leaving the land fallow for a season to rejuvenate the soil. These people built California into the nation's provider by the late 40's. Now, of course, it's all mechanized and corporate farming, not a bunch of subsistence farmers. But I'm proud of my "Okie" heritage!
Intensive monocropping of cotton and grasses (wheat, maize, barley) stripped the soil of nitrogen and ruined its tilts. Many farmers were share ripping for large agribusiness, so they had to plant what the bosses ordered and take the prices offered.
If any of this sounds familiar ... yeah. Midwestern farmers face similar pressures today, only hitting break-evens via insane yields on single crops, year after year, and only managing that thru buying expensive proprietary seed and dumping massive fertilizer and herbicide inputs onto their fields. Then selling to the big cartels. Farmers *know* it is bad for the soil, but they are trapped in the biz model, just like the Dust Bowl farmers.
Tilth, not tilts. Share cropping. Facking autocorrect.
My father spent his childhood in the Dust Bowl/Great Depression in northwest Kansas. In boot camp he had to have an emergency appendectomy, and the doctor kept him in the hospital to allow him to put on weight before he rejoined his unit. The doctor told him his underweight condition was quite typical of servicemen that came out of the Dustbowl.
There's a new book that came out called "The four winds" by Kristin Hannah. It's written from the perspective of a family living through the dustbowl. I really enjoyed it and would highly recommend reading it.
Read “ A Token ofLove”, by Ann Bowyer. This is a story based on the experiences of her grandparents.
I’m reading that right now and it’s the reason I’m watching this video!
My parents and extended family fled Oklahoma in 1940, and I was born in a tent in a howling blizzard that winter (40/41) near Yosemite California. That spring the family moved to San Joaquin Valley to work in the fields and grape vineyards -- believe it or not, a town called Lodi. I remember family members talking about the "Dust Bowl" and what happened after.
My grandparents both grew up on farms in Oklahoma during that time period. My great-aunt remembers being caught in a dust storm as a child as her father drove them back home. He stopped the car and held her as the storm blew over. She remembers how dark it became & how scared she was but she felt safer with her Daddy there. I’m sure there are other stories she & my grandpa could’ve shared but I never thought to ask before they died.
A little while back I watched the doc that was narrated by Ken Burns. Blew my damn mind.
Yeah thats a good great doc but
Him and his team are always great
All his work is great and so is his brother rick he did one on the donner party.
He did a great many superb ones. Loved them.
Ken Burns is my favorite documentary filmmaker!! I love his Civil War one especially.
Ken Egan, author of "The Worst Hard Times" (and I think he was in Burn's docu) also did a very good video on the Dust Bowl. Sorry I can't think of it's name.
I'm from upper midwest Texas near Oklahoma. This video hit very close to home. Even now dust storms are more common in my home town than rain. We were in a drought for 7 years growing up. The sky turns brown an you know to get in the house. Never ending dusting and everything outside is caked in it. Tumble weeds stuck under everyone's cars and winds so strong they blow you over.
My parents lived through this. They said it was devastating and that if it had not been for FDR's policies helping to establish practices to minimize soil erosion as well as helping those in need it would have been even much worse.
FDR's Soil Conservation districts and Social Security are the only New Deal programs that are surviving to this day.
i said it before i say it again:
*The Modern Shipping Container* and its impact on global trade
needs an episode on geographics!, nothing has changed the planet like these millions of steel boxes traveling the globe every day!
Yes Simon, what he says!!!!!!
Absolutely!
I love maritimes history. The damn container brought and end to passenger cargo ships. Not full passenger ships but not oure cargo ships. Really neat.
I second this!
@@baronvonjo1929 and nowadays boarding on a cargo ship across an ocean is like 10x the cost of flying, thus only a rare novelty and not practical anymore :(
I'd love to go to europe or asia by boat
Thanks for topic! Both sets of my grandparents spoke of growing up among the dust storms. How scary of was for them as teenagers, but how hard it was on their parents and family. My dad's parents decided that thereust be someplace better than that he'll hole and did move out west to washington, but my mom's parents stuck it out. I never truly knew what caused it. But now I do! My grandmother just said they later figured out weather cycles, but at the time they were farming in ways they thought was best. If my grandmother were still alive, she would've appreciated this info that explained her childhood.
Simon Whistler is by far the best narrator on RUclips BY FAR
"Allegedly"
U N D E R - A P P R E C I A T E D
Biographics, Geographics, Mega Projects and Side Projects is like Simon being an awesome school teacher.
Business Blaze however is like when said school teacher gets home on Friday night and just cuts loose.
The amount of content this guy and his team produces week to week is astounding.
I agree but many do not, unfortunately.
I full heartedly agree. My wife might not agree.
I asked my grandpa about this point in history. He wasn't alive yet but his dad was. Out here in our nowhere state we just heard about it. But on clear days, on a tall hilltop, with a good view west you could see dark clouds in the distance. Never moving, never growing just there. Old-timers said it was the wrath of greedy, God fearing men, wanting too much too quickly. To hear my grandpa tell this gives me goosebumps. Great video Mr Simon
My great grandparents were farmers in South Dakota at this time, many of their sheep and cows were killed but luckily my ancestors planted a tree line around a century prior which prevented much of the topsoil from blowing away.
I’m from Oklahoma but part of my extended family lives in California. I always assumed they moved there during the Dust Bowl.
Having lived in Death Valley, I can understand the dust and sand storms. We had dust and sand that went through every crack and crevasse in our trailer.
Simon and his team gotta be the hardest working youtubers. Y’all deserve a vacation!!!
Thank you for enlighten me about my fathers youth. He didn't talk much about it but he was one of those "Okies" that fled to California and succeeded to build a good life for his family.
My dad was born in Oklahoma during the dust bowl. His parents stayed until their passing. I don't recall my dad or grandparents talking much about the dust bowl. Any time it was brought up, there were teary eyed references to those being very hard times. Thanks for an excellent report on one of the biggest disasters to ever happen in North America's recorded history.
All your videos pop up at the same time... well i know what I'm doing for the next hour or so. Thanks Simon and Crew thumbs up stay awesome everyone.
I live in Kansas farm land, and to this day farmers have lines of trees called windrows bordering their fields and pastures.
Excellent video. I am a 5th generation Kansan. I was also trained to be a history teacher. You did an excellent job. Most people do not realize that the native prairie grass had roots that were over 5 feet or more deep. This was need the reach water in this climate. Droughts still happen. We just know how to deal with them more effectively now. Now wind farms are spring up all over this region. A crop uses the wind that does not water.
My grandmother lived through both this and the Great Depression. Some of her stories were bonkers when I was younger but hearing this... Grandma I'm sorry
Ahh yes, the dust bowl. We in Kansas know it well. Or as I like to call it “That time the ground itself tried to kill us.”
It's more like the land was fighting back. People farmed the only way they knew how, which didn't work well for where they were farming. A drought was only the tipping point for a disaster that was destined to occur.
As a fellow Kansan, I can confirm stories through my grandparents, indeed the ground did try to kill us all. And it was "Uphill" both ways
@@lonnarheaj truth, but also add in the fact that we literally went from old single blade plows, to a straight line of 5 rotating plow blades, we could till up more ground quicker and more of it.
@@Dr-Weird @Christopher Justice.... the land was never yours to begin with. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 and the Homestead Act of 1862 were the seeds that gave birth to the dust bowl. Settlers had no clue, knowledge, experience and whom never have seen it before, destroyed the Great Plains in one generation 1862-1930.
@@gomezjosepha.4860 Oh, yes. Let us give the land back to the indigenous peoples, move back to Europe or wherever we came from, take the blacks back to their homeland, and everything will be hunky dory. Sounds good to me. Feel better now?
Grapes of Wrath was a great book that showcases the life of a migrant family from Oklahome to California. The story really shined a light on the hardships my great grandparents and great-great grandparents experienced.
Human advancement knows no boundaries.
But that doesn’t mean we’re invincible.
No boundaries, you say?
_laughs in the infinite void of space_
@@SolemnHeretic The trick is we have to achieve the technology to reasonably access and extract space resources BEFORE we use up the Earth's limited resources. Earth herself is humanity's biggest boundary to overcome.
Growing up much later in the northern great plains (1970-80s), I remember my dad showing me fence lines that had been buried 50 years prior and his stories of the dreaded "Snirt" storms of the day (snow and dirt combined). Many of the tree lines exist to this day and of course, farming practices have greatly changed.
Great job Simon I subscribed too this channel just because of this video my family has lived in eastern oklahoma for 4 generations
I met a number of Okies and their descendants while living in California during the 1950's to 1970's. I lack the words to describe their plight! Thank you for this brief reminder.
Simon didn’t talk about Canada because he was too scared to say Saskatchewan. We sure as hell got the dust bowl too
Yeah I was surprised we didn’t get a mention in there good video none the less
If only you'd been from British Columbia - I'm sure he'd have been okay with that. 😁
Indeed, the Western plains of Canada were severely affected by the drought too. In part the creation of the government run health care systems that would eventually be across Canada would start in the Western provinces.
I'm in Southern Alberta as a transplant from my beloved BC.... seeing all the barren farmland without a tree for miles is not only heartwrenching for personal reason but when the dust storms here kick up, it's not too far of a stretch of the imagination knowing that another 5-10 years of the drought we're having, will render this place from a commercial farm wasteland, into a dusty hellscape.
I found this interesting, because as a native Oklahoman, we learn about the problems we caused by not understanding what we did to the soil and about the reforms and new farming practices implemented. We learn that we obtained the name of "Okie" (ironically I am from Muskogee like the song) as a slang from migration but this is the first I've heard it was derogatory. We generally see it as a sense of pride that we are willing to work for what we have. Then again... I went to public school.
It was derogatory outside the state, to the point that some parents told their kids not to tell where they were from.
Because the whole country was rocked by the depression California also felt it. So the influx of immigrates from other states lead to conflict. But I also think there was more to it. I think many people blamed "Okies" for the Dustbowl because of the poor farming techniques people were using on the great plains. Even if a lot of those "farmers" came from out of state.
Yeah the other states used it as a derogatory slang. Basically the poorer working class got really pissed when all the dust bowl refugees showed up and were willing to work for less than the natives were. You see this punching down pattern repeated with essentially every single great migration that happened in the US.
When I think of okie I thinkof some of the lame brain ones from Oklahoma which really is all of them its a fighting word if you ask me but be proud enough to fight it.
My grandma was born in Oklahoma In 1927. Her family relocated to California in the mid 30’s and did pretty well considering the circumstances
Now do the Tennessee Valley Authority Act.
Manners!
No you
Except you won't like the answer, that is a massive success
It would still be interesting to learn about regardless.
It's an inconvenient truth for al gore.
I remember being first introduced to the word "Okie" in "Grapes of Wrath", and it impressed me very much because it is kinda forgotten now and a relic of a very specific time, while many other derogatory words (that can be traced back just as far) are very much alive and well-used today.
Best presentation of the Dust Bowl I have ever seen. Thank you so much. I love all your programs. Please keep up the great work!
Everything you covered was very accurate. I’m a 5th generation farmer in the area. We’ve seen it all.
I lived in Oklahoma. There are abandoned buildings from that time period you can see pretty frequently. Some of them it looks like they were going to come back, like they just got up to go to work or school and never came back. Time froze
In oklahoma this time is often referred to as "The dirty 30s"
Is this a midwestern thing? In Nebraska, that term is as common as "The Roarin' '20s".
@@micahphilson pretty common here and soooooo not midwest lol
Jennie Kreiner I’m in Oklahoma too and haven’t heard that term, but then again it’s not like I talk about the dust bowl at work or anything.
Also used here in the prairies of western Canada. 🇨🇦
@@micahphilson The Roarin' 20s had nothing to do with the Dust Bowl. It was about the prosperity of the 1920s. The Dust Bowl happened in the 1930s as the economy was collapsing.
I remember learning about this on my senior biology class in high school. It's so crazy no one talks about it as much as they should
My great grandmother is alive rn and survived the dust bowl. Said it was terrifying and annoying thing to live thru
I can only imagine!
Okemah is where Woody Guthrie is from they have a celebration every year with his name. The house he lived in is still there.
Can remember getting slapped for saying Okie in front of my great grandma.
Being from up north, I remember the term. Although, I really didn't grasp the term.
@@brentfuhrman148 it's not offensive now but her generation it was definitely a slur like they use for Mexicans. We're from the Northeast OK so she was dustbowl adjacent.
That Insult was still being used up till The 1970's, when I was a Kid. My Grandfather Owned it and laughed it off. They were from Guyman, They kept their land, but, came to California to find jobs, He ran a gas station untill becoming a Fireman.
Fuck. I’ve been saying okie dokie my whole life and now I gotta cancel it
@@LTCAproductions you're good to use it we've commoditized it. Like Sooners were cheats who snuck in early for the land grab, that was Native land, but is one of the most popular teams with Natives from NEOK. Just don't use it as an insult.
I first heard about the dust bowl through listening to Woody Guthrie's music about 30 years ago. The photos really put his words into context. Good job Simon.
Props to FDR. Regardless of his political views, must have been extremely stressful trying to deal with something like that.
I dunno about that, he was president a long time before deciding to do anything about it.
@@Bitchslapper316 He tried to get an early start. Too bad entrenched conservatives in congress and the courts kept blocking him.
@@evanulven8249 I wasn't alive then but everything I've read about his presidency says he dragged the country through the dumpster.
@@Bitchslapper316 Then everything you've read is mostly wrong.
@@Kstang09 If you say so. I guess it's easier to just blame a republican for anything bad that ever happened in the country. Who needs proof or sources right?
My family was among the 250 that settled in California. We should really be teaching more detailed history in high school I had no idea about any of this Growing up
My father's family migrated from Oklahoma during this time. They found jobs in both the agricultural and fishing/canning industries. The stories my father used to tell could've been a blueprint for Mr. Steinbeck. They certainly hit a lot of the same notes.
In my California HS they taught us this.
We were taught this in school, most kids do not pay attention and a lot of teachers do not care enough to get kids attention. The government just cuts more funding to schools because WAR!
I was just saying more detail would have been nice more than a paragraph in social studies class that I got.
@@nolgroth Like The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, and Cannery Row.
There's a fantastic multipart series on this I watched many moons ago, it is tragic and absolutely heartwrenching, but beautiful and done with the utmost care. I loved it, thank you for reminding me of it!
The Dust Bowl by Ken Burns?
@@sandybarnes887 i was wondering too 🤔
@@kwclove7623 it might be that, Love.
Hearing 'That Chapter's usual background music here was quite confusing hahaha
A little while back I watched the doc that was narrated by Ken Burns. Blew my damn mind.
All this just reminds me of the cornfield chase scenes in interstellar. Absolutely unbeliavable.
The dust bowl and doughts affected parts of Canada as well.
There was a picture of a dust storm I took in Afghanistan (nothing I had ever seen before) I showed it to WW2 vets from my hometown regiment. One of them shouted that it was just like Saskatchewan in the 30’s! Crazy.
@@jkwacker8225 Ha ha, that's crazy. I know my grand parents talked about the dust. I'm in Manitoba and we got it too, although probably not as bad as Saskatchewan. I can imagine dust storms pretty bad in Afghanistan!
A great book to read on this subject is "The Worst Hard Times". I live just to the east of the dust bowl area. This area was affected by the huge walls of dust that settled into the area. A lot of that land was not suited for tillage farming. It was however very productive when it was first broken out but the fertility was quickly depleted as there was no fertilizer then. Some who farmed this area didn't live there. They would buy up lots of acres and go out and work it and plant it and then go back home just hoping for a crop. My mother's brothers and sisters went west to look for better opportunity and did pretty well. My dad's family were doing pretty well here and didn't have to leave, even buying land during this time and during the depression.
That is a great book. I never forgot the young couple who just waited to long to leave. To walk away from their home. And their baby’s lungs just couldn’t handle the dust and the baby died.
So glad you mentioned Woody Guthrie. There's so much history wrapped up in his songs. He was instrumental in helping to develope his sons career (Arlo Guthrie) but was also a great inspiration for another great folk singer, Bob Dylan. Woody is a great American icon.
Woody's song about the dust bowl is called "Dust Can't Kill Me".
One of the more fascinating slow motion disasters in US history that created a refugee situation that most Americans think only happens in other places. Timothy Egan wrote a great book about it (The Worst Hard Time) and Ken Burns of course did a fantastic documentary. Both are worth checking out for those curious to deep dive into this history.
It really is amazing to think of how much "history" happened within one generation. A child born in 1910 would have experienced WWI (not directly if they were in the US mid west, granted) a childhood in the roaring '20s, the dustbowl/great depression when they were in their mid adulthood then world war II and watching humans walk on the moon. All of this before they even retired.
I wonder how many people in all of history would have seen so many events like this. Even today, with all of the events we are constantly flooded with informaiton about, it feels like our lives are so much more plain/safe/easy. I don't know if that is sad or a great triumph. Somehow, I don't think it is going to last much longer.
I think of what times my grandfather lived through. Born in 1900, horse and buggies, to 1970, man on the moon!
What a time to witness!
I hate realizing your videos are almost over. Another great one
The “Migrant Mother” in the pic at 16:03 is 32 years old, iirc. She looks at least 10 years older. Hard times take their toll.
It's such a powerful image...her face is absolutely captivating, you read so many emotions in it.
@@Terri_MacKay It is. In the wider view, you can see she’s also holding an infant, it’s not just the two kids at her shoulders. Three little lives so dependent on her, and so little hope. It’s hard to look at, but also hard to look away.
look into what happened to her later--seriously it boggles the mind how someone can go from what happened then to what happened to he rflater
My great grandmother lived through the dust bowl in the Texas panhandle. She told us about how theyd line up the whole family monthly and pull strings of dust out of each others throats, like dirty pearl necklaces she said.
I cant even click on them fast enough 😅🤣 5 videos on 5 different channels thank you Simon for the content.
hes got at least 6 maybe more
@@backwoodsman9493 i think he has like 9 channels
literally just watched the ken burns dust bowl documentary and then came to youtube and this was top of my subscriptions.
A video on the native Americans who were “displaced” during these migrations thru the American desert is needed
A term I heard in the San Joaquin for some of these folks was "toasted Okies". Now, I´ve heard it adopted by children from mixed marriages of all sorts who live in the rural areas there, but, I don´t like it. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth for many, many reason, among them, my moms´s sister having married a first nations man and many of her cousins and mine having Native American blood. Plus, refugeees from the Dust Bowl were treated so brutally.
no, theres no reason why we should elevate the natives above anybody else. they arent special. stop trying to stir up nonsense.,
My Grandmothers both mentioned to me about the dust reaching northern Mississippi a few times covering things like peoples cars, farm equipment and houses, plus all the trees.
Ohhh iv always wanted to learn about this I’m saving this for later🔥
There’s a documentary on either prime or Netflix that is very good also. I think it’s free
@@GreenGlo1991 thnks
I do that too. I've learned more from Simon's channels in the last few years than I ever did in school.
@@whoawhoapop1984 facts they should just use his videos in schools 😂
@@michaelq5501 for real !
Not only informative, but the production value is outstanding.
History is fascinating
Man, the more I hear about the Great Depression and all of the garbage that happened during those 20 years or so, the more I'm glad I live in 2020. And that's saying something.
You're not dead yet.
And farmers today are turning pastures into fields and tearing out trees at an alarming rate. We need more pasture and trees in them. But raising cattle isn't prosperous enough so they turn pastures into fields to make money. We need to make grassfed beef more profitable so its more feasible to keep pasture. Maybe with some type of incentives we can get more trees and pasture back
Bad farming practices? Hhmm i feel like this cant be the only time humans have helped create massive dust storms
Sahara, man.
@@ElijsDima Seriously you believe the sahara was created by farmers?? You really skipped history and geography in school...
@@Scootermagoo The Sahara was green ten thousand years ago. There's cave art in the region depicting people and megafuana living in lush environments similar to the Okavango. Yes the Sahara naturally cycles between lush and arid over eons but overgrazing by domesticated animals and over farming by humans has made it much larger than previous cycles.
@@barneyrubble4293 Yes I know and guess what, throughout human history it's been a desert due to weather and climate changes, We didn't cause it per se but as the midwest shows we can cause it without foresight. We didn't farm the largest desert on earth to being a desert, it's been one since man found northern africa.
@@Scootermagoo We exacerbated it and as I said humans have lived there since before it became a desert.
My grandfather grew up in SW Iowa, hour from Missouri and an hour from Omaha. He once mentioned to me his mother used to hang wet towels in the windows during washing. They were bone dry within just a few minutes, due to the strong dry winds kicking up from Kansas. Always found that amazing.
8:35 The crash wasn't a single-day event.
If I remember right, there were maybe 3 days of severe crashes all within one or two weeks?
Late September had a bad shake up, then followed Black Thursday (10/24) and the really bad Black Tuesday (10/29.) The market and economy didn't recover from 10/29 until 1940.
When I am curious about an event or person in history. I go straight to Simon for an in-depth and thorough lesson on whatever subject I am interested in. Thanks mate, I enjoy your content. 🙂
just wrote a book report on “The worst hard time: the untold stories of the great american dust bowl” for my english class. great book
Tim Egan is a wonderful writer and journalist-historian.
Which would you say was the worst hard time ever ?
Biden administration, grab on to my leg hair, and hold my beer
@@patheticprepper4496 lmao big fax
I’ve read that book twice. I live in the area.
Simon, you always do a great job on your videos. Another great vid!
Read a great book on westward expansion and it’s environmental impact. The dust bowl and recovery efforts were a central theme.
“The Four Winds” by Kristin Hannah is an amazing historical fiction happening during the Dust Bowl. Highly recommend it!
I loved this video thank you!!!
The music in the background, at the start, is regularly used on YT channel, That Chapter. "Hi, I'm Mike... and in this video..."
That chapter is an awesome channel 😀
Yeah, Mike is a class act
Well done, Simon. Your research was solid and I found little, if anything to complain about. Neither of us were born yet, at the time, so, like you, I know only what I was told by my teachers. Even my parents, who were children during the 1930s, had no direct experience with the dustbowl, having grown up in Minnesota and St. Louis, Missouri. By the time they met, married and then moved to Oklahoma City, in 1950, the dustbowl, which had only affected the panhandle (the high plains), was over with. Despite spending most of my life in Oklahoma, I've yet to visit the region, which bears no resemblance to the rest of Oklahoma, which varies from lushly wooded rolling plains to mountainous regions and forests. You did an excellent job of exposing affects of the dustbowl on the people who lived through it and sought a better life in California. I was born in Oklahoma City in 1952 and even I have been called an "Okie," usually by ignorant people who have never been to Oklahoma and know nothing of its history, people, culture or geography. I was the first of my family to be born there and my ancestors had emmigrated from County Down, Northern Ireland in 1774, settling in Pennsylvania and, over the course of a few generations, Wisconsin and Minnesota. My life has had nothing whatever to do with anything rural. I'm a city boy. Oklahoma City is the capitol of the state of Oklahoma, as well as its most populous city (over a million people in its metropolitan area), contrary to the ignorant perception of people from the East and West coasts, who believe it to be a rural small town. Oh, one thing, though: the region has been known as the Southwest since the 1700s, when everything west of the Appalachians was referred to as "the West." It was only after settlement of the West Coast that anyone began referring to the middle of the country as the Midwest, owing to the fact that the West was largely unsettled during the early nineteenth century.
This was a well done and informative video. I was surprised you didn't mention the Navajo livestock reduction in the 1930s, though. It was pretty horrendous on the government's part and was supposedly related to the dust bowl. Maybe you guys can do a future video about that subject?
Oklahoma native here.
It's still ingrained in local society. I live in the eastern part of the state, and over here it wasn't as bad thanks to natural hills and rivers.
However, I took a trip out west last year and came across abandoned towns and homesteads when I traveled far off the main highways. Even found an elderly couple who were born during the dust bowl and talked with them about life post-dust-bowl. It wasn't easy for them and still to this day they live very conservatively, saving every single penny and buying as much land as they can, keeping trees planted and not farming every acre anymore.
Its... its almost heartbreaking seeing people who were affected by it and hearing their stories of how they lost friends and siblings to the dust during the storms. Much like Simon mentioned, dust would cover towns during broad day light and not all teachers were smart enough to keep children indoors. Instead, some sent children home. The elder lady I met lost her brother to the dust, he ventured from school right before a storm and wasn't seen again until his body was found days later.
One of the most forgotten events in American History.
In my family, it was never forgotten. When one of us kids complained about anything, we'd get a lecture from Dad who survived the dust bowl storms in western Oklahoma.
I disagree. It's an event that's taught in school, resulted in starvation & migration at a previously unknown level in the US, was covered in great works of literature and photographic essays that are still shown today, and was the base for a number of government policies that still exist in some form.
Not forgotten, it's even taught in schools in the UK
@@calendarpage Yes, but few remember it in later life, we remember the wars and the Depression, but this is largely forgotten
My grandpa was born in 1930 in North Dakota. His dad homesteaded there from Indiana. They went back to Indiana because of the dust bowl.
A few things I remember Grandpa telling me about his childhood in North Dakota:
1. He did mention seeing a dust storm coming.
2. They had to run a rope from the house to the barn so they wouldn't get lost in the snow.
3. One day Grandpa went to wait for his sister to come home from school. She apparently came home without them seeing each other. It was snowing. By the time they found him, it was a miracle he survived.
Brother can you spare a dime? Echoes of John Steinbeck.
I was born in '41, raised on a small farm just east of Wichita. I recall what were probably two separate dust storm occurrences when I was 5 or six. Like in this report, our house ended up with about an inch of dust on the floors and some drifted dust outdoors. Didn't last long but were vividly etched in my memory from those days. By the late '40s, the storms were rare, never got to the intensity the previous years.
It should be noted that the Dustbowl encompassed much of Western Canada. Do not forget us please. We only endured because of the local community.
Yes! It's a real shame we weren't taught about it; I'm glad my kid is. There's a great book about the Depression and Dust Bowl in Canada, "Ten Lost Years," by Barry Broadfoot. In the early Seventies he realized that we were beginning to lose the people who had lived through it all, and drove across Canada collecting random people's stories about living through it. Definitely worth reading!!
I remember reading or hearing that the workers building the Empire State Building had to cover up to protect themselves from the Dust Bowl dirt that would sometimes pummel them during construction.
My grandmother's family migrated to California during the dust bowl.
A very fine episode, accurate and as complete as the time allows.
This would have been the perfect video to have Dust Bowl Dance by Mumford and Sons as its soundtrack.
My Mom grew up in SW Wisconsin and remembers the dust storms blowing in from the Dust Bowl. They occasionally had to wear damp handkerchiefs over their face to prevent breathing it all in.
Gotta say night shift has a perk I get to here this befor bed
I love this video. It's my family history. My great grandfather bought 10,000 acres in 1914. My grandfather never talked about being at D day but he would tell all about the dust bowl days.