The Farm Security Administration operated camps like Weedpatch Camp for the farmers, sharecroppers and laborers that had been effected by the Dust Bowls in the Great Plains. The Dust Bowl lasted from 1930 to 1936 and in some areas it lasted until the early 1940's. Dust Storms were cause by severe drought and decades of extensive farming without crop rotation, and other techniques to stop erosion. The dust storms that caused major ecological and agricultural damage to American and Canadian prairie lands. Topsoil that usually kept the soil in place had been deeply plowed in the Great Plains.
Without anything to hold it in place during the drought of 1930, the soil dried and turned to dust. All of the dust blew away eastward and southward. These storms were given names like, "Black Blizzards" and "Black Rollers" because the would reduce visibility to a few feet. Centered on the panhandles of Texas, Oklahoma, the adjacent parts of New Mexico, Colorado and Kansas the Dust Bowl affected 100,000,000 acres.
The Dust Bowl was a human disaster that was caused by miuse of land. It was also caused by years of sustained drought. Millions of acres of farmland were useless after the Dust Bowl. Families called were "Okies" because so many came from Oklahoma. Most "Okies were forced to leave their homes. They mostly went to to California and went from farm to farm piking fruit and other crops at very low wages.
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