Introduction   The Dust Bowl was one of the most momentous events in American history.  Coinciding with the Great Depression of the 1930s, the Dust Bowl changed the landscape of the Great Plains as the winds blew away the exposed soil - the resulut of drought and the "Great Plow Up."  These giant dust storms or black blizzards that rolled across the the plains affected more than just the top soil that it carried away.  For the people - in particular the poor farmers trying to make a fresh start – that lived in the heart of the Dust Bowl, these black blizzards symbolized the loss of their livelihood and the American Dream as it all blew away with the wind.

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Alex Hugh Erosion No. 2 - Mother Earth Laid Bare, 1936

Table of Contents Background  Causes and Effects  American Dream            * The picture on the left was a work done during the Dust Bowl; it represents the abuse to the land.  The plow in the front and the barren land shows the overworking of the earth - the result of people.  Within the dirt, we see the figure of a women who represents Mother Earth.  She is left vulnerable just as the land was.  In the background, we see green land - a hope for better future and the return of prosperity.

Works Cited 

Bellis, Mary.  “Twentieth Century Timeline.”  About.com. The New York Times Company, 2010.  Web.  2 Dec. 2010

Henderson, Caroline.  Letters From the Dust Bowl. Ed.  Turner, Alvin O.  Norman: University of  Oklahoma Press.  2001. Print.

King, David C.  The Dust Bowl.  Carlisle: Discovery Enterprises, Ltd.  1997.  Print.

McNamee, Stephen J. and Robert K Miller, Jr.  “The Meritocracy Myth.”  Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2004.  Print 

Smith, Henry Nash.  Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth.  Cmbridge: Harvard University Press.  1978.  Print

Worster, Donald.  Dust Bowl: The Sothern Plains in the 1930s.  New York: Oxford University Press,   1982.  Print.

Worster, Donald.  Under the Western Skies; Nature and History in the American West.  New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.  Print.