Dust Bowl

At the turn of the twentieth century, several factors came together that would eventually lead to the devastation of what was referred to as the Dust Bowl, a wide expanse of land in Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, and New Mexico that was turned into a virtual desert, thus causing widespread poverty in these southern plains states. First, there was a mass movement of settlers into these territories, with most of the people eking out a living on land that was originally considered sufficient only for grazing livestock. Then there were generally accepted, but invalid, so-called scientific beliefs that cultivation of crops actually attracted moisture; and the spread of railroads and electric wires as well as the use of artillery fire induced rain. None of these theories proved true and adding to an already unstable condition, as the population of these arid areas increased, the drought cycle...