The Dust Bowl

USA in the 1930s. This post is about what the Dust Bowl was and how photography played a part.
I wasn't really sure on what the dust bowl really was I only recognised pictures from that time. So I started reading a book called 'The Dust Bowl Trough the Lens'

It explains why the indulgent rich land had tern to dust. It was a combination of wheat prices rising and farmers getting the money for new machinery that could plough the land faster as well as still using horses. This was the start of the problem as they were ploughing the land so often it wouldn't get a change to settle and gain back its nutritional value. But farmers weren't worried, as the rain would give the land the life it needed. So as well as over ploughing the land they were also over grazing it as there was so much food for the cattle and sheep. But it soon ran out and yet again the farmers weren't worried, as the rain would sort the land out. Apart from the rain never came. Just more hot weather and high winds which turned the land to dust.    

This resorted to hundreds and thousands of people in a really tough situation, as they had to make a decision weather to take to the road and trail their families miles and miles to find a new environment to live or to stay and try to preserve their land. Either decision would suffer consequences as they could be waiting years for the rains to come and the land might already be so damaged it can't be restored. But then taking to the road to find a new liveable land might take weeks and there would have been so many possibilities that could have gone wrong like heat stroke, dehydration, famine or even facing sandstorms without proper shelter.

The most well know photographer to capture the nations hart about the dust bowl was Dorothea Lang. She took stunning documentary photos from portraits to signs. The most famous of her work would probably be the 'Migrant Mother' She took many photos of the same woman but it was when her two children burred there heads into there mother that is when you can tell out of all the images this one is the most powerful as can see on the mothers face that there is very little that she can do for her children.    

figure 1 
'Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California.
Dorothea Lang by Mark Durden 
page 19