Still kickin' up dust.

This week in New York City at the Young People's Literature Awards ceremony Timothy Eagan was awarded first prize in the nonfiction category for his latest work, "The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of the Survivors of the Great American Dust Bowl." Eagan was quoted, "We are of a story telling nation...and this story was nearly dead." His book focuses upon the first hand accounts of many survivors who are still alive today and in their eighties.
The American Dust Bowl certainly was an event that no one in America should ever forget. The Dust Bowl was an agricultural disaster that stretched from 1931 to 1939. What occured during that time was the poorly cultivated land was so barren and infertile from over production during World War I that it began be picked up by the violent wind storms rolling across the land that for eight years it ravaged Texas, Arkansas, North & South Dakota, Oklahoma. At times the dust clouds were so dark that they blackened the sky. This disaster called for an exodus from the suffering states and an overflow of homeless families into major cities with hope of finding work. Unfortunately due to an economic disaster known as the Great Depression already under way, work was scarce in cities. Later in 1940 when the totals were added up it was known that 2.5 million Americans were displaced from their homes in the mid-west portion of the country. Even still today the mid west still feels the population effects of this terrible mark on history. Just for this reason alone it is tremendously important that the young people of America keep an interest in it's history much like Timothy Eagan has.

1) New York Times,
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-et-nba16nov16,0,1874400.story?coll=la-home-nation

2) Wikipedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl

3) About the Dust Bowl
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/depression/dustbowl.htm