The Dust Bowl - The Times of Wrath (Chapters 1-10, A*)

The Dust Bowl

A massive dust storm approaches houses in Stratford, Texas, 1935.

The Dust Bowl was one of the most devastating time periods in American history, destroying ecology and agriculture throughout the Great Plains and imposing itself upon farmers' daily lives. The presence of a formidable drought and the failure to prevent the Aeolian processes of wind erosion contributed greatly to the outbreak of the numerous, destructive dust storms that took over the Great Plains. Topsoil, grassland, and once profitable and cultivatable farmland soon turned to dust as the drought and lack of periodic rains settled in, while the damaging dust storms took a concentrated centrality to the 100,000,000 acres of the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma, skirting the edges of New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas as well.

Black Sunday was an extremely severe and intense dust storm that occurred on April 14, 1935, that hit, among others, the home-state of the Joads: Oklahoma. Approximately 300 tons of topsoil was moved by this unprecedented storm as it moved across Oklahoma and into parts of Texas, with dust flying randomly and at profoundly high speeds. This storm is particularly significant in the course of history as it led to the permanent foundation of the Soil Conservation Service (SCS, presently known as NRCS – National Resources Conservation Service) by Congress' passage of the Soil Conservation Act, largely thanks to the efforts of soil conservationist Hugh Hammond Bennett.

Black Sunday Storm

Hugh Hammond Bennett

The Grapes of Wrath directly relates to the subject of the Dust Bowl as the whole first chapter of the book depicts the setting of the Dust Bowl. The word "dust" is repeated many times throughout the first few chapters of the novel as well, expressing the significance it had to both the setting of the time as well as the presence of the material in daily life. Additionally, the Joads live in Oklahoma, one of the main states to be hit by the Dust Bowl, further displaying the importance of the Dust Bowl to Steinbeck's piece.

The Infamous "Okies"

A band of Okies San Diego, CA.

A mother and child traveling Route 66.

The Okies were groups of migrant workers and farmers who were coerced into leaving their homes and farms in primarily Oklahoma to seek a better life in the West. They were poverty-stricken peoples that had to leave the agricultural depression and marginalized land that were taking over the Great Plains. Okies in fact was a derogatory term that labeled those who were severely impoverished farm laborers. Many migrant farmers traveled along the famous Route 66 in order to reach California from their homeland Great Plains' states. A harsh truth, however, was that life in California was not that much better than it was in Oklahoma, for instance. California was advertised to contain many jobs for the unemployed, and to a certain extent, this was true; however, because of the huge influx of people into the state, the jobs quickly found workers, and many were still left jobless despite their transition across the country.

The term "Okie" was in fact made well-known through Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, as after he wrote this novel, the term was acknowledged nationwide. As a matter of fact, the Joads themselves are a group of Okies that has to move westward for sustainability. Not only does the novel consist of characters that are Okies, but it was one of the main pieces behind the derivation of the term.

The Great Depression

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

The Great Depression, sparked by the stock market crash on "Black Tuesday" (October 29, 1929), was the unprecedented period of economic downturn for both the United States and the rest of the world. Unemployment nationwide spiraled up to 25%, and severe economic instability remained until World War II. Coupled with the Dust Bowl, the Great Depression reached the lives of millions living in America, and was one of the main factors resulting in the massive migration westward of the peoples of the Great Plains. The Great Depression began under the presidential supervision of Herbert Hoover, who was largely unhelpful in bringing America back from this catastrophe, but the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1932 began the era of hope and determination for American revival and prosperity. His creation of the New Deal attempted to help banks and other institutions that had been backtracked get up and running once again, and tried to limit the increasing gap between the rich and the poor from the Gilded Age during the 1920s.

Stock Market Crash of 1929, Caused Great Depression

The relationship between the Great Depression and The Grapes of Wrath lies in the fact that the Great Depression is vastly eminent in the lives of those living in the setting of the novel, and directly affects the Joad family as they have to move west for financial reasons. The Great Depression affected people's daily lives during this time as it strained them to obtain the essentials for life, such as food, water, living quarters, etc.