Black Sunday
The Drought
Mass Exodus from the Plains
1. Hoover was criticized because he did not do enough to stop the Great Depression. While did do somethings with government money to stifle the depression, he didn't do nearly enough and seriously underestimated the severity of this recession, because he believed,like many Americans, that the economic prosperity was a reflection of character and was deserved. This moral of Social Darwinism caused many Americans to blame themselves for their own poor economic standing. However, when looking at the problem as a whole, the concept that individual Americans did something to deserve this kind of poverty is simply false.
2. Black Sunday was the day of an extremely powerful dust storm. While this are had been experiencing dust storms for most of the year, the one on this particular day was by far the most severe. The pain that would have been felt by the sand crushing those caught in the storm could only be matched by the fear of not knowing where you were or being able to see enough in front of you to find shelter.
3. The drought was most prominent in the "Dust Bowl," the area consisting of the eastern part of Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas panhandles, south Colorado, and north New Mexico. a wicked dry spell and the systemic destruction of soil through misused farming techniques caused an abundance of loose dust particles to be constantly carried by the winds, and n the worst cases tornadoes. I disagree with the statement the writer makes at the end of the post. The dust bowl, (and most aspects of the depression) was the result of old techniques being unsustainable, However, because they had never failed before, no one had any real reason to expect them to, and therefore no reason to develop more sustainable methods.
4. The migration from the dust bowl to California was the largest in American history. Many migrants faced discrimination by locals for overcrowding the farms and driving down wages for local or foreign workers. They also were often forced to live in slums or bad company houses that lacked water or electricity.
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