USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -The Dust Bowl intensified the crushing economic impacts of the Great Depression and drove many farming families on a desperate migration in search of work and better living conditions.

Detailed explanation-2: -The severe drought and dust storms had left many homeless; others had their mortgages foreclosed by banks, or felt they had no choice but to abandon their farms in search of work. Many Americans migrated west looking for work.

Detailed explanation-3: -The term Dust Bowl was coined in 1935 when an AP reporter, Robert Geiger, used it to describe the drought-affected south central United States in the aftermath of horrific dust storms.

Detailed explanation-4: -A combination of aggressive and poor farming techniques, coupled with drought conditions in the region and high winds created massive dust storms that drove thousands from their homes and created a large migrant population of poor, rural Americans during the 1930s.

Detailed explanation-5: -The exact number of Dust Bowl refugees remains a matter of controversy, but by some estimates, as many as 400, 000 migrants headed west to California during the 1930s, according to Christy Gavin and Garth Milam, writing in California State University, Bakersfield’s Dust Bowl Migration Archives.