Major US Events

The Dust Bowl




The greatest human suffering of the Depression era might have existed in the Dust Bowl. For most of the decade, massive dust storms plagued the residents of Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, and Texas. Farm production in these areas fell drastically for most of the decade, further diminishing morale as the economy continued to collapse. A severe drought was the major cause of the dust storms although poor farming practices (stripping the soil of any topsoil) also contributed to them. By the end of the decade, nearly 60 percent of all farms in the Dust Bowl were either ruined or abandoned. Many Dust Bowlers traveled to California to get agricultural jobs there and discovered that if an entire family picked grapes from sunup to sundown, it might barely scrape by. John Steinbeck's book The Grapes of Wrath, is based on this very idea.

The Dust Bowl was a very tough time for not only the "dustbowlers" but also the entire country, because the lack of agricultural production affected the economy drastically. Today, this is similar to the tomato shortage due to the cold front that ruined much of the crop this year. Some major fast food restaurants do not put tomatoes on their burgers unless people specifically ask for them. This lack of tomatoes has caused a major increase in the price of tomatoes and Italian restaurants are really being hit hard, because they require a lot of tomatoes for their recipes.


The Stock Market Crash of 1929



The Stock Market Crash, also known as "Black Tuesday," was October 29, 1929, the day the New York Stock Exchange crashed. This means that the prices for stock were too high, far higher than they were really worth. Then they fell sharply. People who had unwisely borrowed money to buy high-priced stocks (intending to sell the stocks at a profit and repay lenders), went bankrupt. (HOW FOOLISH OF THEM!) Black Tuesday marked the beginning of the Great Depression- a period of economic hardship in the United States that lasted from 1929 to 1939.

While we did not have a complete stock market crash in the United States during our current recession, our stock market was having major difficulties staying "afloat." Prices of stocks dropped dramatically, and people began to panic, such as they did during the Stock Market Crash of 1929, and lots of people sold their stock at once.