The Dustbowl

 

John Steinbeck integrates his surroundings into his novels, short stories and novelas. Steinbeck's most well know novel,The Grapes of Wrath, allows reader's to travel from Oklahoma to California. The Joad family were among the 200,000 to eventually come to California. I like to associate imagery with the text that I am reading. Steinbeck will use imagry throughout his text by description. Since the Dust Bowl is a part of history that had an affect on more than two million people, I thought it would be nice to share some pictures of the dust bowl with you.

 

 

 

This image of the dustbowl shows

the gigantic dust storms that causes

many people to migrate to a new location.

As you can see from the map, the dust bowl affected many more people than just those in Oklahoma.

http://www.wtvzone.com/moe/moesboomerabilia/page12.html

 I can't even imagine how I would handle such a large problem. Notice the people and the size and the amount of dust in the picture.

This farmer in Minnesota was affected by the same drought that caused the Joad family and many other families to leave the dry areas in search of a better place. Like many farms during this time, the picture shows plants that are dead due to a dry spell that affected many areas.

http://climate.umn.edu/doc/journal/top5/numberone.htm

 

 

Many families were evicted fromtheir homes during the dust bowl of the 1930's. It was a combination of the dustbowl and the evictions that led many families like "the Joads"to find a new home in a new location.

 

Links for further investigation:

Many dustbowl pictures from the Library of Congress

Informational site on the Dustbowl

 

 

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