1910-1920's: The Southern Plains of the US become a vast area for growing wheat with farmers clearing millions acres to create fields.
1929: The Great Depression begins and prices for wheat fall lower and lower. Farmers plow up more grass to make more fields to try to grow more crops. Many farmers are not able to maintain their farms and leave them abandoned.
1930's: A drought begins and lasts 8 years. Huge swaths of land that used to be covered with grasses are now open dirt. Dry conditions plus the usual winds of the plains create huge drifts of dirt and dust "storms".
1930's: Families flee the Southern Plains, moving westward into California causing a great migration.
"Legacy | THE DUST BOWL". The Dust Bowl. N. p., 2017. Web. 23 Feb. 2017.
Via PBS American Masters, 2014
Photo of Florence Thompson by Dorothea Lange entitled "Migrant Mother," California, 1936.
Learn what it was like to be a farmer during the Dust Bowl and here first-hand accounts here.