• History Connection. During the 1930s, people throughout the United States experienced extreme poverty in what became known as the Great Depression. Because of a stock market crash, banks closed and credit became unavailable. People with little savings were unable to purchase goods. Farmers could not afford to buy seed to plant crops.
• Science Connection. In large parts of the Midwest, a lack of rain combined with overfarmed fields created a disaster. The drought dried up already scant crops and caused dust storms to take over fields and gardens. In the Oklahoma Dust Bowl, conditions were particularly bad. Cimarron County, in the Oklahoma Panhandle, stood as an example of all that could possibly go wrong in farming the western prairie. Dry dirt blew around sparse fields, blocked doorways, covered gardens, and caused many people to abandon their land.
• The lives of the residents of Cimarron County and other parts of the Dust Bowl were recorded in photographs during the 1930s. Photographers sent by the Resettlement Administration (1935–1937) and the Farm Security Administration (1937–1942) documented government programs that gave cash loans and helped construct housing. The photographers also recorded the lives of agricultural workers and urban and rural living conditions in the South and in the West.
Cimarron County, Oklahoma.
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