The Dust Bowl and the New Deal: America’s Response to Crisis
The Dust Bowl: A Decade of Dust and Despair
The most visible evidence of the devastating drought of the 1930s was the dust storm. Tons of topsoil were blown off barren fields and carried in storm clouds for hundreds of miles. Technically, the driest region of the Plains – southeastern Colorado, southwest Kansas, and the panhandles of Oklahoma and Texas – became known as the Dust Bowl, and many dust storms originated there. However, the entire region, and eventually the entire country, was affected.
The Dust Bowl earned its name after Black Sunday, April 14, 1935. Dust storms had been increasing in frequency in the years leading up to that day. In 1932, 14 dust storms were recorded on the Plains. In 1933, there were 38 storms. By 1934, it was estimated that 100 million acres of farmland had lost all or most of its topsoil to the winds. By April 1935, weeks of dust storms had already occurred, but the cloud that appeared on the horizon that Sunday was the worst. Winds were clocked at 60 mph. Then it hit.
The day after Black Sunday, an Associated Press reporter first used the term “Dust Bowl.” “Three little words achingly familiar on the Western farmer’s tongue, rule life in the dust bowl of the continent – if it rains.” The term stuck and was widely used by radio reporters, writers, in private letters, and public speeches. In the central and northern plains, dust was everywhere.
The Roosevelt Years: A Shift in American Society
America in the 1920s was a hedonistic society. While many people still lived in harsh conditions, the general culture was optimistic. Hedonism had replaced the pursuit of happiness. Instead of getting rich through hard work, the aim was to become rich as quickly as possible in the stock market. People had been forgotten and became victims of business corporations, leading to the crisis.
The necessary transformation began with a change in political institutions. Due to the crisis, the country shifted from Republican to Democrat, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected president in 1932. He was the only American president to have served for more than two terms. He was re-elected in 1936 and again in 1940. The outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 contributed to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s re-election in 1940, as he had a reputation as the father of the nation. America entered the war in 1941 after the attack on Pearl Harbor and was focused on ending the war. The prevailing sentiment was that Franklin Delano Roosevelt should finish his work, leading to his re-election in 1944.
The New Deal: A Bold Response to Crisis
Inaugural Address
“I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our people impel. This is pre-eminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured,
will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. […] Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously. It can be accomplished in part by direct recruiting by the Government itself, treating the task as we would treat the emergency of a war, but at the same time, through this employment, accomplishing greatly needed projects to stimulate and reorganize the use of our natural resources. […]