I didn't see the films and haven't read all that much about the period but growing up on the prairies recurrent dust storms were part of life. They would happen once or twice a summer mostly after a long dry spell sometimes towards mid-August early September and they would block out the sun (darkness at noon) and most sensible people would stay indoors put sheets across the sills and around windows and wait it out for the hour or 2 involved. The clean-up would be brooms and mops and leaving it to the next wind that might be blowing in a slightly different direction to move the dust/sand into gullies and off roads etc.
My sense is that the physical side of the dust-bowl was not that different from what was fairly common in the arid semi-desert prairies of the mid-West and prairie region of Canada but what was different was the Great Depression that meant that there was no slack to help rebuild if there was damage or interruption in employment or returns from crops. My Dad was itinterent during this period but mostly because the retail business which gave his father/my grandfather his living stopped providing a living revenue which was only partly due to crop failure but also do to the overall failure (and extremely dumb and unproductive anti-Keynsian policies) of the then Conservative R.B. Bennett government. M From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ray Harrell Sent: Saturday, November 24, 2012 8:35 AM To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION'; [email protected] Subject: Re: [Futurework] The dust bowl I lived through it. I was born at the end of the dust bowl and only went through one dust storm. A storm where my mother covered my crib with a wet baby blanket. It was a farm scene with a windmill a barn and a water trough. I couldn't breathe and cried during the whole time. Later I would dream that scene with the printed barn and feel suffocated while crying and unable to hear through the moisture of the blanket. A recurrent nightmare. After moving to the Quapaw Reservation and the Lead and Zinc mines we would encounter dust storms filled with lead and heavy metals. It felt a dry slickness from the lead and the chemicals in the dust. We had all of the issues you discuss here. Pollution and silicosis. Heavy metal contamination. Dangerous work and finally automation and no jobs. I've told you about my father's little WPA program where he combined the government funding for the schools with help for the town so I won't repeat it. I've seen automation and robotics and the "freedom" both bring. Free to be poor in the private sector. We too had stories and attitudes about California and their "immorality." REH From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Arthur Cordell Sent: Friday, November 23, 2012 10:34 AM To: [email protected]; 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION' Subject: [Futurework] The dust bowl http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/dustbowl/ The PBS four hour program on the dust bowl was compelling to watch. It covers much of what is discussed on these lists: work and working, ecological issues concerning use of land, social cohesion and social breakdown, and things being done today that might lead to huge problems tomorrow. It brings home to the viewer that lots of talk about ecological issues in today's world really doesn't deal adequately with the pain experienced by people when crops fail, when drought persists, when moving away from home and family seems to be the only thing to do. A must see if you have a chance.
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