Goodness, another depressing book about the Depression. Fascinating account of how people survived - or didn't - during the great sand storms on the plains and how and why the plains became dust bowls. We certainly have things good. Egan begins by introducing the reader to assorted characters who are followed throughout. Causes of the dust bowl: a bubble of land speculation and wheat over-planting by non-residents, helped to create conditions that made the dust storms almost inevitable. World War I had caused demand for wheat to skyrocket, but soon too much land was in wheat, prices began to fall, more land was planted to make enough money, and the cycle began. Then the drought began. Soon the west was virtually a desert, the buffalo having been destroyed and the prairie completely obliterated. When they were able to get something - anything - to grow, then locusts arrived to eat virtually everything in sight.
The Depression and poverty completely changed the culture: from profligate spending of the Gilded Age to hoarding and mistrust of the banking system. It will be fascinating to see if something similar results from the current economic conditions. It must have been terrifying to struggle in to town to withdraw some money to pay for much needed supplies and food only to discover that the bank has gone out of business, taking with it everything you had. Then to go home and slaughter starving animals because you have no food for them, and then have to decide which of the kids doesn't get to eat. We have no clue today of the suffering engendered by the Depression and Dust Bowl.
My father and mother were born in 1922, but they were fortunate to live in eastern Iowa where my father's father was a dean at a small college. They took many pay cuts and often had to work for nothing, but at least they had some money and a cow and garden. My other grandfather lost his farm in the depression. Around here (in northern Illinois) you could tell which bank had taken over a farm by the color of the barn. One painted the barns white, the other painted them red.
