The Worst Hard Time

 Note to self - don't read two long books in a row about disasters because it is depressing. The Worst Hard Time-The Untold Story About Those Who Survived The Great American Dust Bowl was written by Timothy Egan. He was a reporter and wanted to get some first hand accounts from people who lived on the high plains during the dirty thirties (1930's). He researched the people from Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, Nebraska and New Mexico who did not leave. He found a number of folks willing to talk about surviving a decade on a farm that gave no crops. He also researched the reasons for the dust bowl. Some government decisions such as exterminating the buffalo in order to get rid of the Native Americans didn't help. The Homestead Act insisting that farms be 160 acres did not help. Encouraging farmers to plow up the prairie and plant wheat did not help. Some parts of the high prairie do not get enough rainfall to sustain anything other than prairie grass. The railroads and the government encouraged people to take unsafe risks. Some people left but two thirds of them stayed. The dust blizzards were so bad they had to wear face masks and put Vaseline in their noses. The high winds and fine silica sand blasted the land, the cattle, the houses and the people. Many people died from dust pneumonia. People tried to keep the dust out of the house by shutting all doors and windows tight and hanging wet sheets over the doors and windows. Dust still got in. The air quality was hazardous to health. Dust piled high in some places completely covering fence posts and some farm machinery and outhouses. Some people were so hungry that they ate and fed their cattle salted Russian thistle (tumbleweeds). The President, Franklin Roosevelt, tried to help. He hired Hugh Bennett to solve the problem. Thus began the Soil and Water Conservation Act which is one of the few of Roosevelt's programs that is still around. Bennett bought back some of the worst farms. He taught farmers to practice contour plowing. He planted grass on those farms which are now national grasslands. This was a very interesting book about our country's worst, self-inflicted natural disaster so far.