Even before the Great Depression really hit the rest of the United States farmers extraordinarily high debts. Debts force farmers to face foreclosure often, resulting in over 750,000 foreclosures from bankruptcy between 1930 and 1935. However even though there was plenty of auctioning that occurred from these foreclosures, banks tended to make only very little money. This was due to the fact that farming communities were often going through the same thing, meaning that not only if one farmer didn’t have money, the others were bound to not have much more, but they understood each other's problems. This understanding and brotherhood, meant that often times during these auctions, the only person bidding would be that whose stuff is being sold, allowing them to keep everything, for only a very low price.
Although even with all of this comradery, the situation for the farmers wasn’t very good. Prices would drop so low that it wouldn’t even be worth trying to sell them anymore. For example when the price of corn fell to 5-10¢ a bushel, it became cheaper to burn it rather than buy coal. Potatoes and other produce began to be used a currency, as there really wasn’t any money to spend at all. Yet even with this lack of money, farmers did have some advantages over their city dwelling counterparts, such as the fact that even if they had no money, they could still raise their own food. This meant that all they had left to attempt to trade for was such rarities as flour, sugar, salt; pins, needles, shoes, thread and at times cloth. However more often than note, potato and flour sacks were recycled into clothing. This almost working system, even with its faults was significantly better than what those in Hoovervilles were facing. Although this didn’t last very long.
In 1934 the dust bowl started. At first it was just a rise in heat, with temperature rising to about 100 degrees, lasting for weeks straight. Such heat coupled with plowed fields, and nothing growing, meant that all that dirt simply turned into dust. It was everywhere, covered everything, any plants that were left growing were burnt away by the heat and lack of soil, leaving nothing but barren land, and sorrow behind. In 1935, the dust storms started up, the effects were described as that of snow. Withe it getting everywhere, with no hope of removal. Except unlike snow, it wasn’t going to melt away when summer came. The dust killed plants, livestock, even people. It was so devastating, that even those that had been holding on so far were forced into finally giving up.
Sources:
http://www.fns.usda.gov/fdd/fdd-history-and-background
The farmers had a very tough life. It was sad that instead of giving out the food, the farmer had to dump it out because the price's were too low to sell. The country was starving and farmers were dumping their crops because they had a surplus. Do you think it was just that the farmers got rid of their food instead of donating it? While the farmers did have it tough even before the great depression, I believe the surplus should have gone to the city; but unfortunately, the economy doesn't work that way. This is a link that highlighted all the hardships the farmers had to face during the great depression:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/life_01.html
If farmers had donated their food instead of destroying it, that definitely would have helped out the starving of the rest of the nation, but it wouldn't help the farmers out of their situation. As, if the people were getting free food, then why would they want to pay exuberant prices. I think one of the other factors that prevented the farmers from donating the food rather than destroying it, would have been not only their lack of education in economy, assuming that the destruction would help, but also that there was no practical reason to donate it. Donating would have costed money to get it to the people that needed it, money that no one had.
DeleteSince the Dust Bowl was caused by both natural and human error, I think that it's ironic that both natural and human factors were needed to end the period of constant dust storms.
ReplyDeleteThe Federal Surplus Relief Corporation, in addition with the Agricultural Adjustment Agency, bought up agricultural products to feed the poor and end the problem of overproduction.
Roosevelt also signed the Taylor Grazing Act in June 1934, which established grazing districts that would hold down the topsoil.
In 1939, the regular rain cycle finally resumed. In addition with the new conservation programs, the Midwest finally returned to a more normal state.
"Surviving the Dust Bowl" PBS American Experience, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/timeline/dustbowl/
Trey Dunn, "The 1930s Dust Bowl," Trinity College, http://www.trinity.edu/jdunn/dustbowl.htm
One of the things that I like about this article is how you describe the ways that the farmers had it better than the city dwellers in some instances. Another thing that I found very interesting about this article was the talk of camaraderie between the farmers. I had never realized that they were such a tightly knit group of people. It really shows how even during the hardest of times people are still willing to help out their neighbors.
ReplyDeleteYou brought up an idea that i had never thought about before, which was the fact that farmers were able to cut the price of food from their lives because they could make it themselves. I looked into it and found out that despite this fact, that families on farms also had disadvantages from people in the city. Because of their location, many families did have any heat, light or indoor bathrooms.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/life_01.html
I didn't think about those hardships that the farmers had, however it definitely makes sence, as they lived in the middle of nowhere with nothing around them other than fields. But at least the problems of heat and light were at least partly addressed when Roosevelt came into office, and created programs that had for electrical lines to be built across the nation, connecting for the first time, farms to the rest of the nation.
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