![]() It is, however, meant as a reminder that capitalism does produce market failures at times. Finishing Why the Dust Bowl HappenedĪlthough I’m sure some readers will choose to think so, this blog post isn’t truly meant to convince readers that capitalism is awful. The states of the Great Plains have been losing population relative to the rest of the US ever since. The American Way that had seemed so perfect in 1919 now seemed a complete failure. Scorching heat combined with little rain and high winds to create dust storms of a consistency and magnitude almost unimaginable. All that remained was for the Great Plains to hit a drought that also featured high winds.īy the mid-1930s this is what farmers got. When the war was over, prices dropped, and farmers stopped planting this marginal land, guess what? The soil was now loose and had nothing to hold it in place. The marginal land plowed during World War 1 mainly consisted of sod and Great Plains grasses that combined to hold the soil in place. This conscious decision to plow the marginal areas of the High Plains is known to historians as the Great Plow-Up. It appeared a complete verification of the greatness of the American Way. And besides, wasn’t the US government telling farmers to plant more? They were making money and being patriotic at the same time. Land that wouldn’t produce a profit during normal times would produce a profit when wheat prices skyrocketed. The High Plains of Wyoming, Colorado, the western Dakotas, eastern Montana, and so forth, were now economically profitable to plow. When wheat prices soared, suddenly, it became profitable for farmers to farm and plant marginal land. Again, market economics supplies the explanation. By themselves, impoverished farmers were not why the Dust Bowl happened.Īnother thing had happened during World War 1. By 1922 or so, hard times had arrived for many people on the Great Plains.īut that wasn’t all. Suddenly, hard times loomed for American farmers. What wasn’t falling, however, was the amount of debt farmers had taken on to buy more machinery and land during the flush times of the war. European demand for American wheat dropped significantly as a result. During the next couple years, the farmland torn up by the war slowly began to produce once more. One is, of course, that Europeans did not stay at war forever. This seems like a perfect endorsement of capitalism and the American Way so far. Please Click Here to Subscribe to My History Blog!Ī motorist attempts to outrun a dust storm in Texas in 1936. Some invested that money in more machinery or in acquiring more land. Another truism of market economics is that when demand for a product gets ahead of supply, prices rise. Wheat will win the war! That’s what Uncle Sam told Great Plains farmers. The US government implored farmers to grow more wheat, especially after the US joined the fighting in 1917. Europeans needed food, and America had the answer. New innovations in farm equipment increased the amount of wheat a farmer could cultivate. The Great Plains seemed a paradise for growing wheat. Grain belts like the plains of Eastern Europe became battlegrounds.Įnter the United States. But, at least in Europe, World War 1 disrupted agriculture badly. ![]() One thing that helps soldiers have high morale is an adequate supply of food. When nations go to war, they want their armies to have high morale. Our explanation begins with market economics. How could war, in Europe, no less, cause dust storms in America? Most historians trace the reasons why the Dust Bowl happened to World War 1. But why is the 1930s THE Dust Bowl? Any event important enough to get its own name requires greater explanation. The 1890s fit that description in some respects. But the weather has been hot, windy, and dry on the Great Plains for years at a time in other decades, too. The reason why the Dust Bowl happened is because the 1930s were hot, windy, and dry on the Great Plains. On the surface, the answer might seem very straightforward. Therefore, understanding why the Dust Bowl happened is well worth our time. Even if one doesn’t go quite as far as I do, no one denies it was a human and environmental catastrophe. Personally, I regard the Dust Bowl of 1930s America as one of the six worst ecological disasters of all time. The question of why the Dust Bowl happened is not merely an academic one. ![]()
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