The book begins with an introduction in which the author describes the Great Plains and how it can induce fear in those who see it. Only one in four people remained in the area and those who were still there asked themselves if maybe it was time to leave as well. Many were blaming themselves for the way the land turned on them.
The author goes to an old man named Ike Osteen and expresses his desire to talk with him about the land and how the draught affected it and the people. The author talks with him and asks him is many people compare the weather with the First Dust Bowl but Ike denies it.
Ike tells the writer his family moved there thinking there will be jobs on the damn it was rumored to be contrasted. For a long time, they lived of the land and had enough to survive and live a comfortable land. This all changes in the 1930 when a long period of draught came and the land calcified, no longer producing anything. The rest of the country refused to believe the situation was as bad as it was described until one year when the powerful winds blew the sand and dust all over the major big cities.
The people suffered greatly because of the dust. The cattle died and the children became sick from the dust and many died as well from respiratory disease. Breathing, claimed Ike, became dangerous as many got sick from inhaling the dust.
The author also meets with Jeanne Clark, a woman who survived the Dust Bowl. She got sick however and the doctors thought she had pneumonia when in fact she was affected by the sand. In her old age, she was no longer able to breathe on her own. Jeanne tells the author her mother came the Plains after she was told by doctors to go there to fix her breathing. She got married and had a daughter and thus remained there. The conditions changed rapidly and the Plains were no longer the idyllic place Jeanne’s mother wanted to escape to.
The family remained in the Plains and Jeanne recalls how life was during those days. She describes the efforts many made to keep the dust out and how the children were subjected to dust drills at school. She also remembers the Black Sunday on April 14, 1935 and how she outside, playing that day when her mother called her in, panicked. Soon after, she was diagnosed with dust pneumonia and told she was not going to survive.
The author then meets with a man name Melt White who remembers how in his youth, many paid people who claimed to be able to bring the rain but yet no rain came. Melt White and his family remained in the area even after almost everyone moved out. He always felt an attraction towards the land and he was later told he was part Indian, thus implying that his love for the land was natural.
The land was slowly but surely being abandoned by the people. After the tragedy ended, many pledged to use the land more wisely but the narrator notes that these promises did not last even a generation. Because of this, he claims, it is important to learn about the history and the stories of those who survived the Dust Bowl.
The first part is called The Promise- The Great Plowup 1901-1930 and the first chapter is entitled The Wonderer and focuses on Bam White who in 1926 moved to Texas hoping to find work. Texas bloomed during the first part of the 20th century with towns appearing out of nowhere. Many moved in the area hoping to have a better life and find work either on farms or as picking cotton. On the road, one of their horses died but they continued moving forward through the barren land. Soon enough, they began seeing villages and cities, people passing by them on horses or by using other means of transportation.
The area was originally populated by Indians and discovered in the 16th century. Because the land was not rich in metals, the foreign conquers left but not before giving the Indians horses which they later breed and traded. The Indian communities in the area thrived for a long time until the second half of the 19th century when the Texas government decided to take care of the Indian population. Initially, their plans backfired and the Indians had the upper hand.
The Indians knew the lands better than anyone else and they had everything they needed to survive. The Indians had hunting rights over the land but the white men broke the treaty and hunted bison, the Indians’ primarily source of food and clothes, extensively until the Indians had no other choice but the attack the Anglo stock herds to survive.
The Indians fought against the Texans in the Red River War of 1874-1875. General Sheridan killed the Indians’ horses and they found themselves in the situation to march on foot on great distances. The Indians were later defeated, forced to move into various Indian camps. The state also made sure to kill every bison as to stop the Indians from ever feeling the need to start hunting once more.
After the Indians were removed from the territory, the land remained empty and the government was asking how they can repopulate the area.
Bell White passes by the XIT ranch, the biggest in the area. The land in the Plains was sold extremely cheap to however wanted to buy it and the author mentions how at some times, an acre had the value of less than 2 dollars. Many farmers moved there and began to grow cattle extensively, building windmills to extract water and with cities and villages appearing near the railroads. Unfortunately, the drop in cattle prices and the harsh weather made the ranch to be unprofitable and eventually the owners had to sell the lands to pay off the investors.
Though many people tried to warn the potential buyers the land was not good for agriculture, the government still tried to sell it to whoever was interested in buying land. The farmers at XIT ranch tried to warn people that the claims made by the government were not real. They also tried to make people understand that plowing the soil and removing the grass that was holding it in place was a grave mistake that should not be made.
The book notes that by the time Bam White crossed the Plains, from three-million-acres of land, only about 450.000 acres remained untouched and unplowed by humans. Bam and his family reached Dalhart in February 1926. They made camp on the outside of the city and Bam decided to investigate the city. He reached the sanatorium run by Dr. Dawson and his wife Willie and then by a hotel owned by a man named Uncle Dick Coon. Bam later found that almost every business in town was owned by him. When Bam returned to the camp, he discovered that yet another horse died. With no possibility to buy a new one, the family decided to settle there and to try and remake their life in the new city.
The second chapter is entitled No man’s Land presents a phantom city named Boise City, in Oklahoma. The investors tried to market it as a successful town where people should invest their money but it was all a lie as there was no city to begin with. Despite this, people still bought parcels of land, lured in by the promise of a vibrant city. When they went to see the city, were shocked to discover that nothing existed there. Despite this and the buyers discovering they were the victims of a fraud scheme, the city came into existence in a few years and more than 300 people moved there.
The state continued to push for the population into the area and hoped it would become in time a rich agricultural area. However, the land was empty, with no landmarks.
The author presents a brief history of the area and explains how a strip of land remained unclaimed in the area. The land became known as No Man’s Land and for a long time it was used as a hiding place by outlaws and criminals. The most important city in the territory was Beer City but it was destroyed when the land was claimed by Oklahoma in 1890.
Many families claimed the land and moved there to work it. The author mentions a little girl named Hazel who moved there with her family. She had to adapt to a new way of living and live with her family on a homestead and to the new home, build underground.
The family had a face a number of problems ranging from fires, draughts and floods as well as harsh winds. They remained there despite the dangers and in time, they got enough money to build a house for themselves above ground. Before they finished the house however, a great storm came and everything was destroyed. The family could do nothing else but watch as their house is taken by strong winds and blown away.
Hazel grew up there and had a relatively normal childhood. When she was 17, she became a teacher at the local school and would have to ride every day more than seven miles just to reach the school. The only connection with the outside world was the publication Kansas City Star that arrived once per month and sometimes Hazel wondered what it was like living in a big city.
The small farmers got rich during the First World War when the price of wheat skyrocketed. During the war, the price for wheat tripled as America also became the provider of wheat for Europe. Hazel’s father for example made a profit of more than 8000 dollars per year selling wheat or more than 104,400 dollars today. The farms were told to produce as much as they could and with the promise of good money, the farmers did everything they could to plant more and more. Books came out during those times, teaching farmers how to plant even more and the voices who claimed the excessive farming would be devastating were quickly shushed down. Some farmers made more money than the president or any other major celebrity during those times just by planting and selling wheat.
Hazel married the man she loved at 18 and they moved together to Ohio. They soon found themselves with no money but because Hazel’s husband began studying, she was the one to return back home and take another teaching job to make money.
The author mentions the story of another man named Will who put an add in a newspaper, looking for a wife. He eventually found her and married her. The two then moved into the house built by Will.
Another family living there were the Folkers who even built their own orchard. Since there was no rain, the men had to rely on underground water to keep the trees alive. Many other people did that and they also built swimming pools, one bigger than the other, and filled them with water.
The farmers’ lives were changed by the invention of the tractor which reduced the amount of labor a farmer had to put into making a profit out of their land. The trains made sure the grains were moved from one part to another and thus the farmers were making a good profit.
The region became even more popular when banks became interested in it and granted people who lived there loans for various reasons. People began to spend excessively, building bigger houses, buying expensive furniture and clothes, buying cars and investing in even more land.
The third chapter is entitled Creating Dalhart and the author returns to Bam White who struck a deal with a man to work on his land and share the profits. Bam White remained there and the deal he got feed his family and made him a little bit of profit.
The author then mentions how the people who tried to make a living out of raising cattle struggled as the prices dropped even more and they found themselves forced to sell their lands to people who would use it to plant wheat. The chapter concludes by noting how at the end of the 1920s, only about a third of the region was not planted with wheat or not drilled for oil.
The fourth chapter is entitled High Plains Deutsch and it takes place in 1929 when the US had a food surplus. The farmers could no longer sell their grains and the prices dropped from 2 dollars per bushel to 75 cents in a matter of months. Many farmers had debts they had to pay so they decided to plant twice as much, destroying even more land that was until then only grass. In autumn, the land was already plowed and while everyone was aware of the dangers of plowing that much land, they decided to ignore it.
The plains were inhabited by many German-Russians immigrants who fled from Russia when they tried to avoid being drafted by the czar and sent to war. The immigrants settled on the plains and planted a new type of wheat from Russia, more resistant to cold and the draughts in summer. So many Russian immigrants moved to America than entire villages disappeared completely.
One of this immigrants was George who moved to America to escape being drafted. He lived a happy life on his lands and he never though life could turn against him. He had ten children and still held his former traditions. Even though he was suspected once of being a spy, he continued to love America and never lost hope in the county where he wanted to spend the rest of his life. In 1929, he celebrated a weeding, thinking is life could never be better.
In the fifth chapter, the author presents how everything changed rapidly. The stock market crashed in October 1929 but the people who were affected the most were the ones who worked on Wall Street. In the High Plains, the people still hoped that the prices for wheat will grow, betting on a drought affecting other areas in America used for wheat.
Unfortunately for many, the wheat crop was destroyed by a hailstorm that year which destroyed almost all the wheat crop in the country. The trees were not spared either and the people found saw their year-worth of work destroyed in a few minutes.
In other places, the wheat harvest was so big that there was an excessive surplus. The farmers resorted to burning the excess wheat to produce wheat during the winter while the rest was left to rot in the open fields. Unfortunately, this meant that the prices dropped once more and a bushel of wheat sold then at only 40 cents, not even enough to cover the costs of producing it. When faced with this problem, the people decided to compensate by planting even more wheat than before.
While the farmers had an excess of wheat, the rest of the country was starving and riots over food broke all over. The working jobs became scarce in the farming cities as well and some jobs did not pay at all.
The next year, in 1930, the wheat harvest was good once more but the prices continued to drop until they reached 20 cents per bushel. Many farmers had everything taken from them by the bank and those remaining tried to plant even more. What they noticed is how many lands were abandoned, devoid of any plants, exposed to the wind.
In 1930, the prices dropped even more, one bushel of wheat being evaluated at 20 cents. Some people gave up farming and started to use their tractors to plow the land for the people who were planting even more wheat. One such person was Ike who remained an orphan and who sustained his siblings and mother by using the tractor they had and plowing other people’s lands.
In Dalhart, the people who had money would buy every piece of land they could get their hands on, thinking that in time the prices would go up again. Other people put their faith in oil but the oil prices dropped as well to as little as 30 cents per barrel.
The next year the farmers had once more a record harvest but no one was willing to buy the wheat. Angered, they decided to keep the crops for themselves to make the country notice them but other farmers from other parts such as Baca were more than happy to sell their grains for as much as the buyer was willing to offer. It is estimated that the farmers in 1930 grew seven times as much grains as the farmers twenty years ago produced.
Despite the problems, the vast majority of people refused to leave, claiming they could never leave their homes. Their life was changed however in 1930 when they experienced the first black duster, a storm they have never seen before until then.
The second part of the book is entitled Betrayal and focuses on events taking place between the year 1931 and 1933.
In 1931, the National Bank of Dalhart close and the people were enraged. They lost all their savings and money they put into the bank and they remained with no other source of income. In a matter of hours, the small group turned into an angry mob, demanding the sheriff to open the bank and let them take back their money.
Business was failing in Dalhart and the people like Uncle Dick who invested everything they had in the city were experiencing massive losses. While some tried to maintain a façade of calmness, the truth was that everyone was on edge and ready to snap.
While every business failed, the only business still thriving was the whorehouse in Dalhart. While many tried to cast the women away, the people in power did everything to keep it open, knowing that it was the oonly lucrative business in town.
More than 25% of the population was without a job and many decided to become nomads, thinking they will find work that way. They traveled from one place to another but some cities did not even let the people get off the train and search for jobs.
The economy collapse and thousands of businesses, small and big, closed down. The population stopped buying almost everything and tried to make their own clothes for example to save more money. The wages dropped as well and an average factory worker was only paid six dollars per week in comparison with the 24 dollars he was paid before the Great Depression.
Faced with these wages, many people became robbers and bands of robbers formed all over the country. The people armed themselves how they could to protect themselves from being robbed of the little money they had. The hanging of the criminals was common and the people could decide where they wanted to see a criminal being hanged to death.
The harvest was good once more in 1931 and the farmers refused to lose hope, thinking that the harvest will bring them money. The harvest was bigger than ever but unfortunately, it came at a cost: the natural environment was destroyed and the prairie grass disappeared almost completely. The wheat prices dropped even more and the farmers did not made enough to cover the costs of producing the grains. What is more, that summer and autumn, a great draught came, a draught that lasted eight years.
That winter, it did not snowed almost at all and the surplus grains from the years before rotted on the open fields or where eaten by rodents. The farmers were told to stay at home, sell nothing and buy nothing to force the president to set a national price for the grains and other produce. The president however refused to get involved and farmers all over the country and other animal growers became desperate, threatening to start a revolution.
The farmers remained on their lands, having invested everything they got into it. The year 1932 was not a productive one as the lack of moisture made it impossible to plant anything. All the trees died in a short time and the farmers had to work hard just to produce little food to keep themselves alive.
In cities such as Boise, money no longer existed and people traded what goods they had to get in return what they lacked.
During the Great Depression, a man named Alfalfa Bill was named Governor of Oklahoma. He was a racist man who blamed the Indians, the Blacks and the Jews for all the problems in the area. During his time in office, he issued more than 34 declarations for martial law. Through those declarations, Bill was trying to control the prices while also keeping the people he saw as being inferior in their places. He tried to inspire the people to not give up by promising them to find water and trying to build lakes and bring water to the surface.
Despite his efforts, the vast majority of the population, those who could afford it, left by the end of 1932. A third of the land was no longer usable and the way the farmers neglected it made matters even worse. The absence of prairie grass that held the soil in place until then made itself felt in the autumn of 1931 when a period of great winds affected the area, blowing up the dust high in the air.
In January 1932, the town of Amarillo was affected by a black blizzard like they never saw before until then. The people were amazed to see the black clouds moving towards Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado and Kansas. The people in Dalhart were scared by the black clouds and took cover where they could. When the cloud passed, all was left behind were black sand, covering everything. The dust entered people’s homes and the people living there inhaled the dust through their noses and mouths and then expelled something that resembled black sot.
The eight chapter is entitled In a Dry Land. The author begins the chapter with noting how the lack of water made the bug population grow even more. Tarantulas, centipedes and other types of bugs appeared out of nowhere in large numbers and affected the quality of life. Some people and children even died after being bit by black widow spiders.
The little crops the farmers did manage to plant were destroyed by wild rabbits that fled the barren lands an found refuge in the people’s gardens. While they were easy to catch and many used them as a source of food, they were in excessive numbers and the crops were affected by them. In many areas, the people gathered on lands and killed as many rabbits as they could. The event became a weekly thing for many and they later used the rabbits killed as meat.
The summer in 1932 was unbearably hot and many did not know what to do to cool themselves. Many tried to throw water over their homes but only made things worse as the homes turned into saunas for many.
People stopped seeing robbers as being bad people and instead began demonizing bankers and the people who were responsible for stealing their savings. One robber who was sentenced to death in 1900 was even exhumed and buried in a better cemetery because the people believed that the way he was treated was unjust.
That year, the farmers did not plant anything as the land was too dry to sustain any crops. The people who had animals found themselves in the situation to have to feed them thimbleweed to survive as there was no more grass for animals. The cows no longer produced any milk and it was harder and harder to keep livestock alive.
Those remaining on the land still liked to believe things will take a turn for the better and harbored the belief that the drought could not last much longer.
In 1932, many black storms affected the area. At first, the people did not give it too much thought and ignored it. It soon become clear that the dust was not as harmless as people believed when cattle went bling from the dust and the wind and the dust broke windows in many houses. What was worse, the population was affected as well by the dust and many people affected by the dust began coughing uncontrollably until they eliminated the dust in their lungs.
Hugh Hammond Bennett was the only one who knew what the black dusters were. He knew what the reason behind the black dusters was and how the problem was man-made and not the result of natural catastrophe. Hugh lived on a ranch all his life and saw how agriculture affected the land. From the beginning he was against the way the Government pushed for even greater exploitation of the land. He tried to warn the people but no one listened to him and continued to claim that land could never be broken by mankind. He is also the one who noted that the natural environment was changed less by natural catastrophes than humankind.
The ninth chapter is entitled New Leader, New Deal. The population was ready to do everything they could to earn some money and Bam White had to make some sacrifices as well, moving from one place to another selling skunk hides.
That year a new presidential election was being held and while some candidates stressed the importance of taxes, others promised they would feed the country and they would have a better life. Roosevelt was the man who distinguished himself from the others and he was favored because he took interest in the farmers and the common workers.
Roosevelt was chosen president and from his first day in office he began working to save the American economy. He did everything he could to make money circulate again and made the banks be controlled by the state. He eventually managed to convince the people to trust banks once more and to put their savings back in the banks once more.
He then tried to help the farmers, convincing them to reduce the productions and buying the surplus of food and then distributing it to the ones who needed it. He also eliminated the prohibition in 1933 though some parts still maintained it.
Roosevelt also became interested in the High Plains and called Bennett to the White House to talk about the current situation. The president wanted to know what they could do to make things better and put Bennett in charge. Bennett and Big Hugh, another man put in charge, realized quickly that they had to restore the land to its previous state though they did not knew how to do it.
The weather continued to worsen and the next year was also an extremely dry year.
In the tenth chapter the author continues to describe the state of the country. The people tried to protect themselves from the dust but no matter what they did the dust still fund its way inside people’s homes and covered what small patches with grass remained. In 1933 it is estimated that the High Plains had more than 80 days of black dusters affecting their everyday lives.
There was no accurate way of predicting weather and the people did what they could to protect themselves against the black dust. Some of them spent their days shoveling black dust as the weather killed what they had planted. People shoveled dirt like they would with snow and dunes of sand soon appeared.
It was not safe to stay outside and no one dared to fly over the land as the planes were affected by the dust and more than often malfunctioned and crashed. The summer of 1933 was recorded as being one of the driest summers in history. That summer, the area was affected by two tornadoes and when the rain did come, it came with hailstorms, destroying everything in its path.
Left with no other choice, the people asked for help from the government. However, they made it clear that they did not want to receive money: all they wanted was work.
The third part is entitled The Blowup and focuses on events from 1934 to 1939 and the first chapter is called Triage.
In 1934, men sent by the president went to the High Plains with the mission to kill as many farm animals as possible. The reason behind this is that they wanted to reduce the surplus on the market so the prices would go up. The farmers were told they will be paid for the cattle but the vast majority of them were considered too thin to be bought and were just shot. Almost every cattle and animal was slaughtered and those who still remained died not long after that because of the environment they were living in.
The only consolation the people still had was going to places still a little bit green and dreaming of a future when the country will flourish once more. Those who had the courage to kill the animals were hired by the government and paid a few dollars per day to kill the cattle. The people were free to go and take what meat they could salvage from the cattle but more than often there was nothing to be salvaged.
The people living in those areas began thinking about moving to other parts of the country but the people in charge claimed that by moving away they were betraying the land.
In May 1934 another large dust storm formed and it carried more than six thousand tons of soil and dust on Chicago. Boston, Scranton and New York were affected by the storm as well and the situation was so bad the city had to turn on its city lighting in the middle of the day. The people were scared and the storm lasted for more than five hours, time during which more than 1.350 tons of dirt were deposited in New York.
The people in the big cities were terrified but the storm passed and life resumed its course. For the people in the High Plains however, the dust storms were an everyday occurrence and they could not escape them.
The 12th chapter is entitled The Long Darkness and it starts with Hazel who travels to Clayton to have her baby. Her husband took her there and then returned home. When the time to give birth came, Charles was summoned to the hospital. He had two accidents on the way there but he saw his daughter being born. The doctors told the parents they should move out of the High Plaines but they refused, claiming that their life was there.
The summer of 1934 was a hard one as the rain fell in even smaller quantities and the land was even harsher to work than before. The government proposed that everyone does something to help the environment and stressed the importance of team work. The government tried to make the people understand it was up to them to try and help the land and that they needed to work together towards a common goal. The farmers received money from the state and were told not to plant anything to help the land regenerate.
Some politicians proposed building dams and forging for underground water but others believed it would be better to move the population out of the High Plains and into a safer space. Roosevelt proposed planting trees as a way of protecting the land but many were quick to point out that trees will not take root in such a land. When faced with this problem, Roosevelt told his people to research and find a tree that will survive the harsh conditions.
To survive in the High Plains, many people turned to any type of grass and sustenance that could be eaten. They canned tumbleweed and began eating and feeding their animals with yucca roots but this had a negative effect since the yucca plant was the only native plant still to exist on the land and hold the soil in place.
While the situation was bad, many refused to leave. The people were scared by the experience of many who left their lands only to return a short while later when they were unable to find work for themselves and when they realized that life was not better in the bigger cities of the country. The people who had no other choice but stay were the German immigrants who fled from Russia. They knew that since they left their country behind, there was nothing to return to.
Those who had no animals had to rely on other people to survive. Some of them lived out of soup kitchens and road kill and contraband given away by the sheriff. When they could not get food that way, they resorted to stealing it.
The people were so poor they no longer could afford to sustain their children and many of them abandoned their children in the cities where they lived all their lives. Hazel for example, discovered a baby on the steps of the church, nearly dead. The baby survived being abandoned only to die later of dust pneumonia.
The 13th chapter is entitled The Struggle for Air and presents the lengths to which people had to go to ensure they had clean air inside their homes. Parents no longer left their children go to school as it was not safe for them and because on many occasions the children remained stranded at school overnight.
In the first month of 1935, many people died after their lungs were affected by the black dust. The school was closed and made into an emergency hospital by the Red Cross. The dust the people inhaled had a high concentration of silica that affected the lungs. A young and healthy man could die in a matter of days from inhaling the dust. The people living in the High Plains were developing the same disease as coal miners and were dying only after a few days of being diagnosed with dust pneumonia.
That year, more than 50% of the people admitted to hospitals suffered from conditions caused by the black dust and while the doctors advised people to stay inside, nobody listened.
The 14th chapter is entitled Showdown in Dalhart. Alost all businesses closed down in Dalhart in 1936 and some people lost their minds because of the dust. The experience of a woman who lost her husband is mentioned here. She and her child remained alone and one day, the mother snapped, claiming that the dust is killing her and her child. After a little bit of deliberation, the judge decided to commit the woman into an insane asylum and send her child to an orphanage.
Bam White and his family struggled to survive and they did everything they could to keep the dust out. In the year, a group of over 150 people gathered to discuss about the situation of the land. Andy James, a farmer, convinced his people to start investing in the land and to plant once more to stabilize the ground. He claimed that only by accepting help from the government they could restore the land to its previous state. Andy James and other man wrote thus a letter, asking for help and offering to do what they were told just to make things better once more.
Some people like McCarty were not happy to see his neighbors ask for help and he believed it was a sign of weakness from their part to ask for such a thing. He began praising the sand storms and criticize the people who feared them. He claimed that they should not fear the storms and that they should instead look in wonder towards the sky and consider them a miracle. While many considered McCarty as being a lunatic, there were also people who praised him for his reluctance to be dragged down by the situation and his will to fight. He was also against the idea that the prairie grass needed to be planted once more and claimed the soil will mend itself on its own in due time. Despite his optimism, people began dying more often after being affected by the dust.
The situation in Kansas also became worst and roofs began collapsing under the weight of too much dust accumulating. McCarty continued to criticize people, calling them ‘’sissies’’ for complaining about the dust storms and claiming his people dealt with them from a long time without any type of trouble. He assured people things will get better in the next year but everyone knew it was a lie. The situation worsened as time passed and more and more people became unable to feed themselves and relied more and more on the soup kitchen.
The Red Cross offered to help as well, mending the broken shoes of the people for free and giving away dust masks to protect the people from the dust. The people tried to force the skies to rain but in no vain.
The 15th chapter is entitled Duster’s Eve and it begins with Hazel discovering her young baby had whooping cough. She is told to take the baby and leave to save her life. Hazel’s grandmother is also affected by the dust and her health began deteriorating to the point where Grandma Lou no longer wanted to eat. Hazel and her husband decided to leave rather than risk their baby’s life. The weather that year was even worse than before, with dust storms almost daily and with schools no longer running because it was dangerous for the children.
Hazel traveled by train to another part of Oklahoma and as soon as she arrived she took her daughter to the hospital. There, she was told the infant had dust pneumonia and a few broken ribs resulted from the intense coughing. Hazel called her husband, asking him to come as well. By the time he arrived, the baby was already dead. Back home, Grandma Lou also took her last breath and died, a few hours after the baby did.
Chapter 16 is entitle Black Sunday and it focuses on the second Sunday in April. The day started good, with the sun shining on a clear sky the first time in months. The people in Dalhart were ecstatic, getting out, washing clothes and going about their lives. Faith sprung in their hearts once more and they believed everything was now possible.
The situation in Bismark, North Dakota was completely different form the one in Dalhart. A dust storm, like they never saw before appeared out of nowhere. People struggled to get to their houses and many died outside, struggling to reach shelter.
The storm him Dalhart in the evening, when no one was expecting it. Rabbits and birds tried to flee from it, running and flying in the same direction. Ike and his friends were out riding that day when the storm caught them. The found refuge in a farm and remained there.
Another man named Joe was in the open, looking for stray cattle when the storm came. He and his friend found refuge in an old house. That they, they also saved a young boy who remained outside in the dust storm.
Hazel and her family planned to bury the little child and Grandma Lou on that day. Their plans were ruined when the black storm came. They had to wait until it passed and return to the city as it was not safe to be out in the open.
The rest of the people searched refuge where they could. The houses filled once more with dust after many people spent the day cleaning everything. People went blind after the black dust entered their eyes while outside. People could no longer fly over the High Plains as it was too dangerous to do so.
The storm was so bad it became dark at noon and the kerosene lamps many had could not provide enough light to see a few meters in front of their faces.
In the days following the Black Sunday, the people came up with a new name to describe the area where the great dust storms were taking place: The Dust Bowl. The media and scientists tried to came with a theory to describe the Black Sunday and they came with different theories regarding the event.
Bennett tried to convince the government to provide the necessary help to restore the High Plains and to stabilize the soil his proposals were largely ignored. The government had different ideas what was happening to the climate and while some claimed it was only a temporary draught, other claimed that the climate would take more than a couple of hundreds of years to revert to its initial state. Other tried to push the president to force the evacuation of the area and to give up on trying to make the land an agricultural Haven. Many politicians quarreled between themselves about the best way to approach the situation.
Bennett tried to come with different ideas to control the Dust Bowl and came up with plans to build natural barriers so the wind will not take the dust on land with grass. He also stopped seeing the event as a natural disaster that will eventually pass and began pushing for finding ways to control it. He pushed for the birth of a government funded section to help preserve the land. The president was also pushed forward by the letters he received from the people living in the region, asking to be guided and asking for help to try and mend the soil.
Some politicians believed that the government must try and help the rest of the country as well and presented numbers showing just how many Americans were without a job and how many relied on relief from the government to survive. Some believed that the people living on the High Plains were inferior and thus they should not be helped and rather they should let nature take its course and take care of the problem.
Two weeks after the Black Sunday, Washington was affected by a dust storm originated from the High Plains. The government officials were so scared they granted Bennett the funds he needed to start working on repairing the High Plains. By the end of the month, more than 20.000 people were sent to the Plains to try and help. The government also signed a law according relief to those who may want to relocate and move out of the Plains.
In Dalhard, enraged by the plan to relocate them, McCarty started a club called Last Man. The people in the club pledged to never leave their homes, no matter how bad the situation will get. Despite this, many decided to leave and the county even gave them tries and gas to those who did not had the means to buy them for themselves. The club even employed a man to bomb the skies in hope of getting some rain and when it started snowing a few days later, some of the people took it as a sign that the strategies was working.
Despite this, people were still leaving the area. In four years, about 20% of the population left the High Plains because of the dust storms. Some still refused to move, scared by the general attitude towards them. By the end of 1935, a letter sent to Washington told the president the situation was so bad that nearly 80% of the population was near starvation.
In Baca county, the most affected area by the great Dust Storms, more than 50% of the population was receiving some kind of help from the government. Many decide to relocate and Ike’s family was among those who decided to leave. Ike’s mother moved to the city with her girls and Ike decided to leave as well. Ike’s brother remained behind, claiming he could never leave the land his father used to own.
The 19th chapter presents another person, a man named Don Hartwell who wrote a diary during the darkest hours. His father died in 1934 and he left behind a small piece of land where he used to grow livestock and farm for food. From his diaries the reader is able to see just how much the harsh conditions had the power to change a man and how they gradually lost hope as things became even worst. He describes how the harsh weather destroyed all the crops and how they had to buy food for their horses. Because of this, they found themselves forced to sell some of their livestock just to have enough money to buy the necessary things for surviving.
When spring came he became even more depressed when he realized that rain was nowhere to be seen. He talks about the weather and how it became gradually worst and also how some of the people he used to knew decided to move out and start a new life in another place.
In July, Don registered a temperature of 102, destroying every crop and everything that was green. At the end of July Don notes that the land looks just as barren as it would look at the beginning of January. The end of summer made Don feel sad, knowing that no matter how hard the summer was, the winter will be even harder. The prices of livestock dropped so low a person could buy a horse with as little as 7 dollars and a pig with 4 dollars.
The conditions during the Dust Bowl were recorded on camera by many photographers sent by Stryker to photograph the living conditions and the people living in the High Plains. The photographs became iconic, portraying the lives of those struggling to survive in the High Plains.
Other people wanted to make movies and capture the conditions in the High Plains but they had problems finding people to invest in their ideas. One film producer named Lorentz pushed until he was granted money by the government to create the movie. He argued he did not wanted to create a propaganda material but rather to tell a story and discover how the situation got so bad. The documentary was entitled The Plow That Broke the Land and Bam White was filmed as being the last cowboy in the area. The documentary was broadcasted all over America and the White House and the President were shown the documentary as well. The image of Bam White is representative because many saw it as the image of the man broken by the land.
The 20th chapter is entitled The Saddest Land and it starts in the year 1936 when Hazel is pregnant once more. She is worried by the time her baby arrives, there will be nothing left of the world she once knew. The state closed more than 400 schools in the High Plains and town after town died as if it never existed. The state was torn between encouraging the farmers to remain, hoping the land will be good once more, or to try and relocate them to safer spaces.
The president refused to give up and the department lead by Bennett bought land they saw as being fit for trying to plant grass that will hold the soil together. The houses were on the properties were torn down to make room to plant grass to hold down the soil.
In the summer of 1936, a journalist named Ernie Pyle traveled through the High Plains and described it as being the saddest land he ever saw. He received many letters from people living in the area, describing the living conditions and emphasizing how the lives of the normal people was affected by the sand storms.
That year, Hazel gave birth to another child, a boy they named Charles. When the baby grew older, the family wondered where to live. They eventually decided to move to the center of Oklahoma for the sake of their baby.
The German-Russian immigrants also began thinking about moving away. Even though they tried to keep their communities together, they were affected by the dust storms as well and had no means of living. When the bank took their tractors and combines, many were left with no other choice but to leave the lands and move to other parts of the country.
The documentary about the High Plains came out that same year and some considered it as being a propaganda documentary. Those who did went to the High Plains had a different opinion as they were able to see just how dire the situation was and how the environment changed beyond recognition. They blamed the people who abused the land year after year and the people who only cared about making a profit as soon as possible with minimal effort.
At the end of the year, the president was presented with a report on the High Plains. He was told that the damge sustained by the land in the High Plains was man-made and that no matter how the government tried to remediate the situation, they will not be able to since more than 80% of the land was in a state of extreme erosion. But the president refused to give up and when he reelected he went to Bennett and asked for his help again. Bennett thus moved a few tones of topsoil in the High Plains and planted different flora and grass he hoped would take root and help restore the land. A belt of trees was planted to control the wind and also to allow the people to plant crops and allow them to grow. The president was warned against trying to plant trees in an arid land but he refused to listen and went ahead with his plan anyways.
The 23th chapter is entitled The Last Men and starts by mentioning how Bam White was shunned by the community after he posed for the controversial documentary. While some were mad at him for portraying the farmers in a negative manner, the vast majority knew that what the documentary claimed was true and the destruction of the land was caused by the farmers themselves.
In 1937, the government paid the farmers to plant grass instead of crops. The farmers were happy to be finally involved in replanting grass and in trying to make the land fertile again. They tried to plant grass and other crops and the states imposed fines on those who would let their properties unattended and to blow away.
Despite the efforts, in the year 1937 there were 134 dust storms, a record number. Despite this, in the early summer a few rains let the crops grow and the grass planted by the farmers took root as well. People were starting to have hope and the refused to cut the grass and to touch the harvest, thinking the weather will continue to be on their favor and that it will continue to rain. The country seemed to flourish but every piece of green was destroyed by a massive swarm of grasshoppers, eating everything in their paths. By the end of the summer, the dust storms returned and the situation became even worst than before.
Dalhart was slowly dying, with the people who pledged to never leave moving away or wasting away as a result of different illnesses. The livestock was dying as a result of the unbearable heat and the lack of sustenance and many families had to separate to find work.
In 1938, Roosevelt visited Amarillo to see the results of Bennett’s work. During his visit, it started to rain and everyone saw it as a good omen. While there were people who relied on the underground reserves and claimed the water could never run out, there were also people who wanted to help change the land and help the soil.
The book ends with an epilogue during which the author presents the current situation. Despite the efforts, a vast majority of the land is still deeply affected and beyond repair. When the rains returned in the 40s, the people began cutting down the trees planted during Roosevelt’s presidency to make room for more farm land. The number of farmers declined by 80% and while the area still experienced periods of draught, the land did not blew away as it was held by grass and other plants put there during Bennett’s time.
