A historical novel that focuses on the daughter of an impoverished wheat farmer living in 1930s Oklahoma, Out of the Dust references many real-life events and phenomena associated with the Dust Bowl, the name given to an area in the Great Plains region of the United States and parts of the Canadian prairies that was plagued by extreme soil erosion and windstorms. The storms caused significant damage to the environment and agriculture, leading to economic hardship for many communities.
A confluence of factors brought about the large-scale problem, beginning with over-farming and overgrazing of the Great Plains as a result of high demand for North American wheat during the First World War. With the native prairie grass either torn out for monoculture fields or eaten by livestock, the region's topsoil was left vulnerable to erosion. A lack of rainfall in the early 1930s dried the soil, contributing to the erosion. High winds would lift the soil into the air, creating massive dust storms that got into people's homes and food and that buried crops. The economic shock of the Great Depression also meant that crop prices were declining for already debt-laden farmers, who had taken loans to scale up production when demand was high. This left farming families in poverty, and prompted many to migrate out of the Dust Bowl in search of work.
The Dust Bowl came to a gradual end with improving weather conditions, sustainable land management practices introduced through Soil Conservation Service methods that helped stabilize the soil, the planting of native grasses and rows of windbreak trees, and improved economic conditions brought about by the economic recovery of the late 1930s.
