Dust Bowl

[ duhst bohl ]

noun

1. a period, throughout the 1930s, when waves of severe drought and dust storms in the North American prairies occurred, having devastating consequences for the residents, livestock, and agriculture there:

   When the Dust Bowl began, the Great Depression was already underway—it was one disaster on top of another.

2. the region that suffered from these waves of drought and dust storms, including the entire U.S. Midwest and, in Canada, the southern prairies of Alberta and Saskatchewan:

   Our Oklahoma panhandle was smack dab in the center of that heartless Dust Bowl.

3. (lowercase) any similar dry region elsewhere:

   Where we see the tragic formation of dust bowls in Asia and Africa, overgrazing is believed to be the main culprit.

dust bowl

¹

noun

1. a semiarid area in which the surface soil is exposed to wind erosion and dust storms occur

Dust Bowl

²

noun

1. the Dust Bowl
   the area of the south central US that became denuded of topsoil by wind erosion during the droughts of the mid-1930s

Dust Bowl

1. A parched region of the Great Plains , including parts of Oklahoma , Arkansas , and Texas , where a combination of drought and soil erosion created enormous dust storms in the 1930s. The novel The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck , describes the plight of the “Okies” and “Arkies” uprooted by the drought and forced to migrate to California .

Word History and Origins

Origin of Dust Bowl¹

An Americanism dating back to 1935–40

Example Sentences

He talked about the Dust Bowl and its reach throughout the Midwest, where we are both from.

From Los Angeles Times

Little did Babb know that the copy of her field notes she would willingly give Steinbeck would not only inspire him as he began his third and final attempt at writing his Dust Bowl novel, but would also make the publishing of her own novel impossible.

From Salon

Little did Babb know that the copy of her field notes she would willingly give Steinbeck would not only inspire him as he began his third and final attempt at writing his Dust Bowl novel, but would also make the publishing of her own novel impossible.

From Salon

More importantly, she recorded a version of Dust Bowl history that gives agency to its victims and highlights the diversity found in California in the 1930s.

From Salon

As scholar Christopher Bowman has pointed out, “While both Babb’s and Steinbeck’s books were “motivated by a genuine concern for the Dust Bowl migrants, and both approached their novels as projects with which they could cultivate public support” for the migrants in California, the story of Steinbeck’s book is quite different.

From Salon