Many people think that the droughts that occurred in the 1930s were the worst droughts in the history of the United States. You could certainly make a very good case for that argument: in July 1934, about 65% of the United States—including almost all of the Great Plains— was in severe to extreme drought (see map). Countless crops and livestock were damaged or destroyed by drought, high temperatures, and high winds, and many people in what came to be known as the Dust Bowl (an area of the Plains that included parts of Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico) faced severe hardships. Although the worst of the agricultural problems were in the Plains, the drought's effects were felt throughout the United States.

It's easier to understand the hardships and impacts of the 1930s droughts if we look at the conditions and events leading up to this decade. In the 1920s, using new technology and crop varieties, many farmers expanded the amount of land they farmed, in order to make enough money to meet their expenses. But because most of the best farming areas were already being used, some farmers had to use poorer farmlands, often referred to as submarginal, whose soils did not contain as many nutrients. Crops grown in these soils were more likely to fail. Another problem with using submarginal lands was that plowing these areas made the soils much more likely to blow away during dry times. When the U.S. economy went into the Great Depression in the late 1920s, many farmers needed to plant even more submarginal acres or plant different crops, often not suited to the Great Plains, that would bring better prices. As long as the rains were plentiful, there were few problems, but when drought and high winds struck the area in the 1930s, the crops failed and the soil blew away in huge dark clouds, causing blizzard-like conditions. In fact, some of these storms were called "black blizzards", and the worst of them could lift dust 3-4 miles up in the air and carry it 2,000–3,000 miles away, so that areas that were not affected by drought, like New York and Washington, had hazy, overcast skies caused by Plains dirt. The blowing dust caused health problems for many people, and even some deaths by suffocation. Sometimes livestock suffocated during the storms, and many crops were destroyed. Take a look at photos of dust storms and their damage and a film clip of a 1930s dust storm.

Farmers in the Great Plains were especially hard hit by the combination of drought and depression, and many of them had to ask for government help. Even with that help, many farmers lost their farms. The effects of the Plains drought were felt throughout the United States. Because the farmers faced so many financial hardships, banks and other businesses in turn suffered losses. Many people found it difficult to pay their taxes, so local governments found themselves with a shortage of funds. Unemployment was high and thousands of people migrated from the drought areas, often going west, to look for work. The cities and regions that received these migrants already had financial problems because of the depression, and they often had a difficult time taking care of so many newcomers. For more information on the people who migrated, see Weedpatch Camp and the Library of Congress' Voices from the Dust Bowl.

Up until the 1930s, private charities, not the government, took responsibility for providing drought relief. But so many people were affected by the 1930s drought and depression that private organizations could not take care of the situation. Franklin Delano Roosevelt's administration was the first to provide wide-scale drought relief. They did so through Roosevelt's New Deal programs, which were created to help people recover from the Great Depression. The drought relief programs of the New Deal included programs to: provide emergency supplies to farmers and ranchers; meet emergency medical needs; stabilize the agricultural market; and help agricultural producers establish good land management practices. It's hard to determine just how much the impacts of the 1930s drought cost, but the federal government probably spent about $1 billion on relief efforts by the time the droughts were over. Most of the money was spent to help people recover from the damage caused by drought, but Congress also put money into some new programs that were aimed at making the nation less vulnerable to the impacts of drought. These programs included the Shelterbelt Program, which paid farmers to plant and cultivate trees to help prevent soil erosion, and the Soil Conservation Service. Preventive measures like these have become more important as the cost of drought impacts continues to rise.

For more information, see the Public Broadcasting Service's Surviving the Dust Bowl.