Dustland to Grassland
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- čas přidán 18. 11. 2021
- The storms of the Dust Bowl are legendary, epitomized in the April 14, 1935 ‘duster’ which gave the date the name "Black Sunday." Despite the fame of the Dust Bowl, the recovery from it is much less well known. The History Guy remembers a story of the massive undertaking that changed the relationship of Americans to their land. It is a moving story of appropriate land use and stewardship that deserves to be remembered.
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Script by JCG
#history #thehistoryguy #dustbowl
My dad used to talk about the dust bowl days, and was more than a little dismayed when young farmers began tearing out shelterbelts. The land I farmed was highly erodible and there were farmers around me who tore out shelterbelts and tree rows so they could farm fence row to fence row. The best thing I did for my land was put most of it back to native grasses. I don't make as much from the land, but the grass is beautiful and makes excellent hay.
Farming practices make soil less vulnerable than ever not to mention the fact that some shelter belts may cause issues like waste through overlap. It's easy to criticize anyone who does differently than I but imposing upon someone else can come back to haunt you.
I have mixed feelings about those shelter belts, and how necessary they are today.
Today's farming practices are different than the 1930s. And those shelter belts require a fair amount of work to maintain.
Additionally I suggest you read Mark Shepard's Restoration Agriculture. His methods are adaptable to your areas. Farmer and land resiliency is important...
You'll rethink those shelter belts as farming profit opportunities...
Well then, I’d say your land was ver productive!
There are always going to be people who can justify anything so they can do what they want and squeeze a little more money out of something. Here - they are removing some of the resiliency from the system, With Climate Change impacting us - that resiliency could be valuable as things get worse. The trouble is - things like Shelterbelts take time to create - however easily they were removed.
You don't have a Civilian Conservation Corps to plant all those trees for free any more. Anyone tearing out a Shelterbelt would probably NOT be able to put it back - which would make that a permanent loss.
There is small recourse for those in the future that would suffer for these things being destroyed. If we keep the destroyers names in memory though - our grand children can make a pilgrimage out of pissing on their graves.
.
My mother was an okie during the time of the dust. She told me many stories but one that stands out. She remembered waking up, many times, as a young person (about 6 years old) and having a halo of dust forming a perfect outline of her head on her pillow. Sleeping with a piece of wet cloth covering her nose and mouth to keep the dirt from turning to mud in her mouth. History worth remembering...thank you sir for sharing this video...very good content, as usual.
Mom told me one blow covered their tractor to the point that only the exhaust pipe was visible. Even now you can sometimes detect old fence lines that drifted over
And I complain when the humidity is high….thanks for the reality check.
My grandmother told me Oklahoma stories of this time period that stood with me as well. They had shutters on the house instead of real windows and had to constantly sweep out the dirt. Folks that had money had glass windows. It’s pretty surreal to think about it. They lived a very fascinating and terrifying childhood.
Oh fuck. Thank you for sharing. Holy shit.
Crazy
My mother spoke of how once when she was a child living in Sioux Falls South Dakota she went next door to play with her friend.
A dust storm came up and the day turned to night where literally you could not see, and if outside could not breathe.
The telephone still worked. The adults determined it was best she stayed until her father could come get her. Grandfather tied a rope to himself which grandmother let out.
Now this was in the built up city proper, the houses next to each other. He had a bandana over his face, carrying a pillowcase for my mother to put over her head.
He made his way next door by memory as it was so dark. My mother placed the pillowcase over her head and was carried by her father back to the house, he guided by the rope as grandmother pulled it back in.
The day was Sunday November 12, 1933, she just having just turned eight years old.
Thanks for sharing that. I was spellbound. Fascinating how something as simple heading home from next door could be so harrowing.
Being called a Good Man is all we can hope for when it comes to being remembered by our children. Hats off to your family
I have the reverse occur in my family. When I describe my son I tell people he’s just a good man. I’m so proud of him.
I would rather be remembered a complex man, like Washington or Jefferson; Good, yet on both sides of the line, wrestling the boundaries of Man.
To all of the Good Men of forestry, past, present and future.
I just try to be the man my dog thinks I am.
"Good men" are just men history has propgandized
Im an outdoorsman,and I live in North Dakota..my dad grew up in the dirty 30s in a sod house so I say.."GOD BLESS YOUR FATHER AND HIS SERVICE!!!!!!!!!"
My father was 10 and living in northwest Kansas when Black Sunday occurred. He went on to work for the Civilian Conservation Corps as a teenager, surveying for shelter belt plantings.
"The sea was angry that day my friends, like an old man trying to send back soup in a deli."
"No soup for you! Next!"
The Soup Nazi
The “dust bowl phenomena” was still going on in Texas in the early sixties. I remember the dust blowing so thick and so hard that you COULD NOT go outdoors. We remained in the house until the dust storm (as they were called) passed. The dust was so fine that it would find its way in through the walls and windows. There would always be a small pile of dust on the floor under the wall outlet in my bedroom. You could see the dust coming through the electrical outlet and pile into the floor.
The dust blows in the Lubbock area in January because the exposed soil of farms has been tilled and little rain occurs during that time of year. Winter cover crops can be beneficial but these require costly irrigation to get started.
I wonder if anybody else ever considers the previous time N.A. had a desert drought was 900 years ago, per the Indian legend of "The Gambler," and this never happened before in the archeo record. Why not admit that the 1930's climate desertification was caused by bounding expansion of artificial radio emissions, unregulated and even produced by malicious mischief, like Tesla's mad tinkering, but on a continental scale? I think ppl miss the point, and are doomed to repeat history, even if radio frequency is being used since then for weather modification.
@@cymacymulacra2301- 🤣🤣🤣
@@cymacymulacra2301 Because we know how radio signals work.
@cymacymulacra2301 thats not how raio waves work wtf.
Back in the 80's we had a hot dry summer in NE South Dakota. I knew a lady who'd lived through the dust bowl and she proclaimed, "This is the dirty 30's all over again" This was before my neighbors turned to "no till" which meant they didn't disc their fields until they were black with nothing laying on the surface except dirt. Another time an elderly gentleman and I were talking. It turned out he'd been in the CCC and had planted the shelterbelt behind my house which still stands today. I also urge anyone who visits South Dakota to visit the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands. 8 miles S of Wall SD is an ideal place to camp where you can look E and see what looks like forever while your camped on the "wall" that overlooks some of the badlands. Just remember to pick up after yourselves before you leave.
"History that deserves to be remembered" Amen
It's nice when your family is part of the history you're presenting.
I lived in Arizona and saw many dust storms. It was scary when driving because you had to pull over (on the highway) and couldn't see a thing. If you didn't have AC you had to sit in a hot car without being able to open a window. Luckily, they didn't last long, but it gave me a new understanding of how awful the Dust Bowl was.
"Haboob"
We got stuck in a duststorm in Wyoming in my dad's 39 Dodge and had to just sit. My poor sister almost panicked and I can't remember being more frightened in my short life. I'm 77 now.
@@garyacker7388 How long did you have to sit?
@@jamese9283 I can't remember for sure, but it must have been for a few hours. Seems like an eternity then.
of course now you're sitting in a leyden jar
My grandfather dropped out of school and left home when he was fifteen to go work at a CCC camp. He did it to help support his family back home. He made one dollar a week he told me; more money than he'd ever seen at one time. I'm very proud of my grandfather, he taught me the value of hard work. He earned his GED late in life, not long before he retired; maybe just to prove to himself that he could do it. He'll always be an inspiration to me.
School of life.
Those who are allowed to skip the lessons of history doom the rest of us to repeating the same mistakes. You’re doing vitally important work THG. Thank you.
My grandmother was born in southern Oklahoma and as a child her family moved to the Texas panhandle.
When I would visit my grandparents and aunts, uncles and my great-grandparents, I would hear assorted stories of their memories of The Dustbowl days.
One memory was a favorite of my uncle who was about 12-13 yrs old and he saw a storm coming their way. As it got closer it began to veer away from their farm.
When it got to the area just west of their farm he noticed that he could see into this rolling dust. He said it was like looking into a large, open-ended tube.
One left-over habit of my 'Dustbowl' family had was taking a table knife and pushing cotton into the cracks around the windows, to keep the very fine dust out of the house.
When my grandmother would sweep her floors, she would wrap a piece of wet fabric around the bristles of the broom and fasten it with straight pins. She said it got the fine dust/sand off the floor better. She would sweep the dirt into a dustpan then dump it outside the back door. Then she unpinned the cloth, rinsed it out and hung it on a nail in the broom closet.
I suspect most kids nowadays don't appreciate how good they have it now. The Greatest Generation lived through the Dust Bowl, Great Depression, and WWII.
There is never an episode that does not reveal some facts that were missed in school.
Always entertaining and always illuminating, thank you History Guy.
Thank you for another brilliant episode. It's hard for us to imagine the impact of the Dust Bowl on agriculture. It's good to remember all those who pitched in to to mitigate the damage and help ensure there would be crops in the future.
The Pawnee National Grasslands are just a short drive from my house. The history of the dust bowl is all around you there; The ghost town of Keota, the windmills that were (and still are!) used to pump up water for livestock to the tattered and crumbling foundations of old homesteads. And don't forget the ever present wind, it's absolutely relentless . If you look a little closer you can still find old tools or nails and bolts laying around. THG's statement about "their dreams being blown away like dust in the wind" is in fact the only way to describe these lands. Beautiful and somewhat haunting at the same time.
I live in Weld County as well. The Grasslands are beautiful, but quite different from my Wisconsin birthplace. The towns of New Raymer and Briggsdale are a couple more towns like like that.
I lived there for 24 years and still think they are beautiful. I used to tell my family back east, the deer and the antelope really do play here. :)
There is a small town named keota near me. I’m in SE Oklahoma
"Disasters can be overcome". A profound statement 'rooted' in humanity.
I am a historic architect working on a project in the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma and about a mile away is the Parallel Forest which was a test site for forest wind breaks. It was planted in the 1930s, I believe and is 16 acre of red cedars planted 6 feet apart from each other.
This makes me want to rewatch “The Grapes of Wrath”. Such a great film. Also my grandfather worked for the CCC. His job was in the tool shop. One of his jobs was to make sure all tools were returned at the end of the day. Apparently many fistfights broke out with men who wanted to sell those tools for cash.
The book was better.
makes me want to watch Garfield Gets Real
Saw the movie before I read the book. Optional reading in my American History class. Learned a lot from both.
Wish I could afford Magellan.
Dude!
@@nancyfahey7518 The book is awful. It’s about twice as long as it needs to be. By far the most over rated “great American novel.”
At least Moby Dick has something to say after being so interminable.
You needed Woody Guthrie's "Dust Pneumonia Blues" at the beginning & "This Land" at the end.
I'm a Brit & look upon "This Land" as your true national anthem. Beautiful.
Although Mungo Gerry nailed "Dust Pneumonia Blues" too! That's some kickin' harp playing!
i do too. Woody's This Land should be our national anthem.
My Father-in-law worked for the CCC. He supported his mother and sister as a teenager. He agreed that we can face these challenges!
In September 2015, I was riding the Empire Builder from Seattle to Chicago. Amtrak often had Park Service docents on trains, and as we crossed eastern Montana, ours pointed out that the fields we were passing were plowed in furrows running north and south and not east and west. He said that since the winds across the plains are mostly from the west, this prevented it from easily picking up the topsoil and blowing it away - one of the lessons learned from the Dust Bowl.
I really enjoyed this episode, as my grandfather grew up in Kansas during that time, and served in the CCC. Also, my husband's great grandparents were homesteaders in Nebraska. The original family home out in the Sandhills still survives and is lived in by relatives. The Ogallala aquifer is truly the lifeblood of the area.
I grew up in Kansas. My grandfather had wind rows on his property and, towards the end of his life bemoaned the fact that many wheat farmers were plowing under the wind rows planted in the 1930s to preserve the soil. My father was born in 1931 in Osage County, Kansas. He and his older sister were babies when the dust storms came through. Both came down with pulmonary fibrosis from the dust in their 70s. The dust storms did more than just blacken the sky. They killed, many years later.
My Wife’s Grand Parents were from Nebraska and the dirty 30’s. I started my Firefighter Career with The Forest Service. Thank you THG
I've read the tree planting portion of the Prairie States Forest program was named the Great Shelter Belt project and in total the CCC is credited with planting over 1 billion trees across all the US.
As someone growing up in a city heavily affected by the dust bowl I think everyone who lives here needs to watch a video like this. The newest developments cause dust clouds not a problem with older neighborhoods.
The pictures of contoured farmland made me smile and think of Louis Broomfield and his efforts to make farming work more efficiently.
An important lesson to us that reminds us of our relationship with the earth.
And how the government destroys it. Dust bowl would never have happened without all the government programs.
@@capitalisa Live and learn, but we apparently have to re-learn these lessons, usually the hard way.
Once it is depleted, the history of the Ogallala aquifier will deserve to be remembered… Great episode nonetheless, thanks THG!
The passion and emphasis of this episode is very evident with you having family that survived, learned, overcame, and repaired a horrible period in our country’s history. Thank you THG
It should be said that the loss of the soil itself had negative effects. The 'dust' that was blown away was carbon-rich, loamy black topsoil¹. Carbon-rich soil is important for three reasons: 1) The carbon helps create a porous soil structure that let's water soak in deeply into the ground instead of running parallel to the ground as runoff. 2) The carbon creates little pockets that retain water, so surface soils stay adequately moist. The first is important for recharging the Oglalla (or any) Aquifer. Water's absorption i to soil reduces surface water accumulations that lead to flooding. The second is to reduce the need for well water irrigation. 3) The loss of this is black soil is a problem because it is difficult to replace in plowed earth agriculture...
¹Topsoil = the (often) thin dark soil layer at the surface, it's most desirable for growing food crops
Its good to hear carbon being used to mean something beneficial
@@timothykeith1367
It does. Carbon is an extremely important component to soil and plant growth.
Much of our atmospheric carbon in the spring is from carbon from plowed soils. It's 1) plowing and 2) grazing the grass until it's too short that are problematic today. They deplete soil carbon and they make it difficult for plants to put carbon back in the soil, where it belongs.
Plants can easily sequester¹ carbon through *proper* land management.
We can change the state of the planet quickly if we change our buying habits, and encourage others to do the same. This would put pressure on farmers to change. It would certainly reduce certain kinds of disasters.
Mark Shepard has a book called Restoration Agriculture. It discusses ideas that could improve cultivation, and farmer and aquifer resiliency.
It'd would be smart to set up a scalar rating system for carbon farming (sequestering) methods. A standard like this would take the guesswork out of purchasing.
Chemical companies would likely be miserable because it depends on monoculture¹ farming.
¹Sequester- store
²Monoculture- an agricultural technique that grows one crop only, per field, per growing season.
More need to learn or relearn this in the Midwest & West. I noticed on that map shown from 1935 that most of the Central Valley, CA was recommended for grazing and not agriculture, might've been able to save some of the wetlands like the Lake Tulare region if cotton hadn't been planted.
Our uses of land and water need to be more mindful of long-term consequences than profit margin.
@@erinmac4750
They could switch to savannah set ups. Mark Shepard uses it to great advantage.
Have you seen his book Restoration Agriculture? Adaptations of his method would save a lot of smaller farms/farmers from being swallowed up by mega corporations.
BTW, Mark's method is profitable and eco-sound.
And thank our little red worms and the microcelium (sp) fungal ecosystem etc for that wonderful medium of plant food covering our most fertile parts of earth. We can rebuild earth back into the garden of eden she was, deserves to be, and has to be in order to sustain life as we know/knew it. Heck a large percentage of life has already gone extinct to the best of our knowledge, and more each day, the numbers, rates, and rates of increase/acceleration are horrifying to most climate wise intelligent humans, yet many still blunder around egoically self centered thinking all is here for their own use regardless of the interrelationships of all forms on earth and beyond. Such short sighted ignorance is rampant, and the sheeple easily led by the nose, imprisoned in invisible self sustained bonds, manipulated yet thinking they have free will and are free. One thing and one thing alone shall set you free, and that is realization of the truth. Humanity/earth are in a singularity now, our survival depends on whether we can still evolve into intelligent beings, evolve or die, its pretty simple. Sometimes the truth hurts and even kills, we have killed/driven extinct so many species often consciously, and all the while unwittingly we are at the same time driving ourself to extinction. All is one and what you do to another being, any being, even dirt and rocks... we do unto ourselves... that is an ultimate universal truth humanity will either awaken to or go extinct from its own ignorance of not.
Thanks to you Dad and Grandfather for their service and stewardship. The most important message is that Conservation Works. The legacy of the CCC is still with us today, mostly good, some misguided by current thinking but nevertheless they did productive work that can literally be seen from coast to coast.
That bow tie/cardigan combo is history that deserves to be remembered. Thank you for another informative morning!
Good morning History Guy from Ft Worth TX. Experienced a dust storm in Bahrain in 1992 when I was in the Navy.
Haboob baby! Must be seen to be believed. ⬅️ HM2
The one time you'd like to be stationed in a sub.
Nice cardigan 😊 reminiscent of Mr Rogers. Like caring about your and father, too.
I love that this ended as a story of hope and recognition of humanities adaptability.
Anybody else having a Fred Rogers flashback?
Yes, the cardigan and bow tie look.
Take on the torch my man
It’s a beautiful day in the history class.
"Won't you be, my Historian?"
What a compliment! Mr Rodgers is an American icon with an amazing story. Maybe that is history to be remembered @ the history guy?
THG, a.k.a. Lance.. the grandson of two "GOOD MEN"... and I have no doubt they would say of him, "A Good Man!"
This man's passion will out live his years. Well done
Grandmother and grandfather both lived in Oklahoma I have photos of dust storms. They were as tough as they came and never wasted anything.
Outstanding content as always from THG - definitely not an old dusty historian.
And yet he hardly seemed irrigated.
Is he a a professor?
Funny
My Grandmother told us how her family came to Indiana escaping the dustbowl . Her six year old brother died passing through Arkansas , they stopped and buried him beside the road and moved on .
I hope they were able to return to you his grave and either properly mark it or move it.
@@rhenderson9234 Nope .
my mom grew up in western Kansas. she talked about it with use kids I was a terrible time but it brought my dad and mom together when my mom's parents moved to Missouri away from the dust
My grandmother left Kansas during the dust bowl. I read the book The Worst Hard Time and was in awe realizing what they went through. I love this take-- what we did to fix it. It really is a hopeful message, plus I wondered how they got the soil back in check. Thanks for the great video!
THG has to be one of the best channels on all of CZcams. Great presentation style full of details, context and honest analysis. So refreshing in an age of contrivance and arrogance.
One of the best ever history presentations by the the best ever history presenter.
My grandmother and her family picked up and left Arkansas during the dustbowl. They moved to Dallas and bought a dry cleaning business. When my great aunts hand was ruined in a press accident, they sold out and headed for San Diego, where grandma met granddad, a California native.
YES!. "Its a beautiful day in history!"🎵
Thanks HG. I have watched many a documentary on the dust bowls during the depression. I cannot imagine loosing everything in the depression, loosing your farm and livelihood in a dust storm, and loosing children due to breathing in dust particles that literally rip your lungs to shreds. Some of the dust would actually reach Europe. I don't know if I could have been as resilient as my fore folk were.
THANKS FOR ANOTHER GREAT VIDEO. YOU ARE JUSTLY PROUD OF YOUR DAD & GRANDFATHERS WORKS. YOU STAND UP FOR OUR POSSIBILITIES BETTER THAN ANY POLITICIAN HAS IN 60 YEARS.
10 years ago the 5acres I bought was over grown with buckthorn and Asian honeysuckle. The rest weeded old pasture. Now years later, a beautiful forest, it just takes hard work and determination. It can be done.
So true. It's a lot of work, but worth it. Over the last 7 years I've managed to buy three adjoining parcels for a total of nearly 80 acres and have been trying to buy 2 more acres, but the current owner won't drop her asking price. As soon as I get the mortgage balance down to 75% of the undeveloped land value I plan to tear down a house on one lot and let nature take over
My Great-Grandfather worked with the CCC in the south during the depression as well. Another good man, so I’m told anyway.
I think you've been doing this long enough and doing such a bang up job, we need a "History Deserves to Remember THG, So Far" Jolly Good Show!
My grandfather told me that these dust storms could "sand" off all the paint on a car !
Hate to burst your bubble, but your grandpa is a tall tale teller. While yes the dust storms certainly did damage the paint of cars, it was only around the sharp edges of the body work where paint would wear off. Practically impossible and a good bit of an exaggeration for dust storms to strip ALL the paint off a car.
@@chevyon37s WRONG
@@chevyon37s The simplest, quickest research on Google indicates you are wrong. The only question is over what period of time? One sandstorm? Surely not. Months? Years? Indubitably. And not just paint, but the glass… Data suggests a single ‘haboob’ can weather a car 10 years.
I'm from California. My grandparents moved there during the dust bowl. Along with thousands of other Okies, they lived in a tent city in Stockton California. That part of town is still called Okieville.
My grandfather told me when the first dust storm was about to hit he was out riding his bike when an old woman next door came outside and yelled “Gib get in the house the world is about to end”. He said he was terrified. That’s just one of many stories he told me about the dust storms in Kansas. rip Gilbert Pracht I miss you and love you!
Brings back memories of my grandparents talking about their once home in Oklahoma during those days.
To this day I'm so proud to be their grandson,remembering the stories they told all us kids of what it meant to really have to survive day by day.
Thank You sir,for telling this story.
I was a farm boy. I was taught to use fertilizers and pesticides. We are farming all wrong. The best soil is full of microbes and organic materials. However, when you farm and dump chemical on the soil, you kill the life and the soil looses it's structure. Then, when you have a big rain, or a big wind, the topsoil is swept away. Since farmers want the most land possible, they farm on watersheds and right up against rivers. This only produce algae blooms in our beautiful lakes. Those Great Lakes, well, Lake Erie is green in the summer.
If you eat, you are part of the problem. I could go on and on, but who really wants to listen to me complain about our problems. But there's so many things wrong with farming, it would take a book. Just one more story. Pigs. Pork is produced in factory farms. The manure is collected in giant ponds. These ponds can leak, or fail, and when they do, you have tons of pig poop spill into watersheds and rivers. We give the pigs masses of antibiotics and supplements. Anyone remember Mad Cow Disease? Well, that happened because corporations made supplements for cows from cows. They thought, "hey, if we feed the cows ground up cow, then they'll get all the chemicals that make up a cow, and they'll be the most healthy cows ever."
No, it was stupid to feed cows to a herbivore.
Our food systems are broken, and there is no real movement to change.
Give us our daily bread.
@Paul Thiessen I used to spray lots of Round Up. Now I'm just waiting for the cancer. Just like medicine, chemicals have benefits and risks....
Oh, and I have to argue with your premise. Organic farms will have to till the soil more and use more fuel. But that's only a one dimensional way of looking at weeds. Firstly, the weed killer is a petroleum product. So, you have to add that fuel usage into the equation. Also, when you produce week killer, you then need to ship that product all over the world, leading to more fuel consumption. So, there is no reduction in oil usage in weed killer applications. So, what about tilling the soil and erosion. Well there's an organic fix for that. It's called cow poop or manure. It you tell under the weeds, and then apply a healthy dose of manure, this adds structure to the soil which prevents erosion. The problem with the easy fixes is, they're aren't easy and they only cause more problems People have been farming the old fashioned way forever, and we managed to make it this far. I don't blame the farmers. I blame the chemical companies who got farmers addicted to the chemicals until they couldn't afford to go organic. We don't pay our farmers. They're profit margins are tiny and their workers are migrants who are abused, overworked and underpaid.
And I'm glad you're so sure Round Up is safe. I remember doctors telling us to eat less fat and use spreads made from vegetable oils. Well, partially hydrogenated oils were thought to be super healthy. My father who had a heart attack was told that fat was bad and oils were good. Funny, governments have banned the product because it CAUSED heart attacks not prevented them. So, just because you tell me Round Up is safe, why would I believe a heartless corporation or your opinion. Because that's all it is. And I hate the fact that I was exposed.
@Paul Thiessen there are better ways to control weeds than tillage and herbicides. Keeping an armor over the soil with a cover crop you role down prevents all the problems listed above and retains moisture and builds microbial life in the soil.
You are also a good man, and we will always remember you as such.
The History Guy is almost as good as the History Channel when it actually broadcast history.
I’m a fourth generation farmer and I’m so happy you did this video. Great job and I can’t wait to tell people about it. Thanks again!
I live and farm in the dust bowl area. 5th generation. The dust bowl is a major part of that history and hardships.
Farming practices now allow the land of the area to be farmed well and to be highly productive in the right conditions.
Growing up in the Texas Panhandle, I heard stories of the dustbowl from my grandmother. She would stuff wet cloth (sheets, blankets, clothing, whatever) under the doors and around the windows to try to keep the dust out. She talked of the black clouds that would come over Amarillo. My husband's family was in eastern Oklahoma. We heard stories first hand. I can't imagine.
Good Morning, and Happy Friday THG
One of your best Episodes so far. With a mighty message indeed.
Like your sweater, history that deserves to be remembered...
My grandad told me they used to call a pickup truck bed trailer a Hoover trailer because during the depression there was a lot of them getting made. More forgotten history
Thank you for educating us about our agricultural and conservation history. As a former USFS employee, I especially appreciate you highlighting the role of land management agencies like the Forest Service. Hats off to your grandfather. He certainly sounds like a good man:)
My great grandparents went through the Dust Bowl in southwest Kansas. They told stories of hanging wet sheets over the windows and mud dripping from them in the morning! And needing wet handkerchief over your face when outside
My father remembered when a storm was over, they had to first use a snow shovel, then a broom, then finally a mop to clean all the dust out of the house.
Hello history guy. I'm quite sure you have read The grapes of wrath therefore you should be familiar with the name of my hometown, Bakersfield California. My grandparents came here in 1922 and when the dust bowl migrants began to arrive in the thirties they had their own established farm here. My grandmother always told of the signs and shop windows that read no Okies wanted, she said this attitude made her and my grandfather sick. They would only hire dust bowl migrants to work their farm. And another twist of irony when the book grapes of wrath came out it was banned in our city, my grandmother had to make a special trip to Los Angeles to buy a copy, mind you this was not a quick easy trip in the 1930s and '40s. This by far is my favorite episode yet, you keep up the good work and I will keep watching. Thank you.
The dustbowl affected the Canadian prairies as well, parrticularly in southeastern Alberta and southern Saskatchewan.
So cool that you were able to have such a direct connection with the story and the event. As usual, I was enthralled and educated. Thank you.
Of all the dustbowl documentaries I have seen this is the first one with positive news.
This man's energy and enthusiasm history and teaching is inspiring !
I am enthralled Everytime.
When you mentioned the pods dug in SoDak, I thought of my Dad helping to BLAST the potholes in the Beltrami peatbogs (northern MN) for Ducks Unlimited. Lightning strikes would make some; the peat would burn, the rain and snow would come, extinguish the flames and fill the hole - instant duck pond. DU did it faster, without risk of long-term fire.
Dad may have known your granddad, as he loved hunting in that area of SoDak.
wow my grandfather also worked planting shelterbelts and also had the same first name as yours.
I grew up in NW Oklahoma. You can drive around there still today and see the old growth trees planted to serve as wind breaks. That you for this story.
My man’s so fired up about overcoming dust his bow tie is bouncin
Love your channel.
The Ogallala Aquifer may have saved farming in drought, but water taken from it is effectively mined and non-renewable. It will take thousands of years to rebuild what's been used.
Excess rainwater doesn't make its way down there?
@@jamieholtsclaw2305 The rate of draw down exceeds replenishment. The water table is dropping. It is not managed as a perpetual resource. Similar to the Colorado River basin.
@@jamieholtsclaw2305 it does, but that process will take 6000 years.
@@jamieholtsclaw2305 Not anywhere near as much as is being used. And in drought years, What excess?
Lessons learned from HISTORY. Damn ... who knew? Thank you.
Bless your dear father, indeed a good man, forever.
I’ll bet he’s proud of how good a man his son is.
Take care Mr. Geiger
This reminded me of a story from the 1800s. Kansas and Nebraska had an infestation of grasshoppers. They destroyed most of the food crops and a lot of people in Nebraska began to eat the grasshoppers out of desperation. The University of Nebraska, when they started having a football team, called the team the "Bugeaters". They soon changed the name to "Cornhuskers" for better optics. I think they made the right choice, but it would be fun to hear, "Go Bugeaters, Fight, Fight, Fight."
Or “Go Bugeaters, Eat, Eat, Eat!”
@@firstmkb LOL
THG had a video on the greatest grasshopper plague of all time which happened in the USA around that time
There were several episodes of grasshopper infestation in the 1930's as well. My dad remembered they had to make sure put all the pitchforks, shovels, axes, hoes, scythes, etc. anything with a wooden handle that a person handled a lot would be chewed on by the grasshoppers making the wooden handles so rough they were almost unusable.
The dust bowl area also had the highest summer temperatures on record as well, long before human contribution of CO2 could ever be an issue.
This was a local phenomenon. Global warming is a, well, “global” phenomenon.
@@davidtrindle6473 The heat waves of 33-36 were global , as were the corresponding winter lows that between them killed all those apple trees from his previous post .
@@davidtrindle6473 It was global.
Actually, in the 1930's the effects of the first industrial revolution, including CO2, were already having an effect. The second revolution occurred in the 1950's which is what is causing a whole heap of problems for us now.
@@shawntucker7674 Such events are relatively common throughout history. Do take care when ascribing the cause of such events to anything. CO2 is pretty low on the list of culprits.
My grandfather was part of the CCC. We need another program like that today.
THANKS FOR THIS STORY!!
MY DAD WAS AN ELECTRICAL ENGINEER WHO BECAME AN AGRICULTURAL ENGINEER TO EDUCATE FARMERS TO PROPERLY TILL THE SOIL!
MUCH OF MY VERY EARLY LEARNING WAS CENTERED AROUND THIS PIECE OF HISTORY!!
A great reminder and lesson from the past of how humanity can cause its own disasters and, under the right circumstances, find relief from and remedy the trouble we inadvertently make for ourselves. Thanks for the history lesson, especially showing what can be learned from the past to help the present, and prepare for the future. Another episode of history that deserves to be remembered ! 😉
Also, how easy it is to make a mess of things and how much work it takes to undo that mess. Second Law of Thermodynamics.
I can not tell you how nice it is to listen to/watch your content, almost everything else is nothing but doom and gloom.
It was doom and gloom during the Dust Bowl.
Then they overhauled their approach to tending to the land.
Now it’s doom and gloom again.
What do you think we need to do now?
My uncle retired from the SCS as regional director in KS and has since passed. His daughter worked her way up the ranks and now holds the same post. It is an interesting job for sure.
I am glad someone mentioned the aquifer that is only a temporary fix in the 90s people would say we only had 30 years left
Really enjoyed your personal connections to this one! As someone who grew up in the rural West, I've been to the site of at least 10 CCC camps. Additionally, the evidence of their work is omnipresent out here. Road grading, embankments, terracing, small bridges, and much more. During the "Great Recession" of 2009, when unemployment was high, I often wondered if the CCC could make a comeback? Honestly, though, I'm not sure modern Americans would put down the video game consoles and participate in manual labor of this type.
I had the same thought and conclusion.
I actively worked "dirt" construction during that Economic Collapse of 2008-2013 (?), and I agree that a CCC equivalent should have been considered. There was, and is so much that needs to be done. And btw, the younger ones do want to be those who "get it done". Being former military, that concept does NOT surprise me.
The current government is trying to bring back the CCC.
I sure as hell would. Enlisting in the military was the second closest thing I could do.
Excellent treatment. History is story telling, and Lance has the talent of doing so with a passion that captivates interest. Another episode I will use when teaching.
I saw the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands on a camping trip I took in 2009...two weeks from Bozeman to Rapid City, with side trips to Yellowstone, Devil's Tower, and Wounded Knee. I had no idea of the reasons why the Grasslands existed!
A good book on the topic is Tim Egan's The Worst Hard Time.
My Dad was in the CCC's. His job was running a "Bush-hog" along the sides of the highways of rural Mississippi.
As a former environmental scientist and UN environment policy advisor, I appreciated this episode immensely. I grew up in a region of the foothills of the Appalachians (NC) where so many fathers of my peers had fathers with CCC experience. Of those, they all mentioned that as the CCC was winding down the World War was starting up. Apparently, many of those then lads got their first taste of regimented life out of doors in the Conservation Corps just before they were needed in Europe and the Island hopping towards Japan. To a man they all seemed appreciative for what that early experience gave them.