Dust Bowl

This course is designed to provide a college-level experience and preparation for the AP Exam in May. An emphasis is placed on interpreting documents, mastering a significant body of factual information, and writing critical essays. Topics include life in colonial America, revolutionary ideology, constitutional development, the formation of political parties, Jeffersonian and Jacksonian democracy, nineteenth…

Many people lost their jobs during the Great Depression. This loss caused many people to move out west in search of jobs and greater economic stability. In The Grapes of Wrath, the Joad family moved out west to California from Oklahoma. This is the most obvious comparison between The Grapes of Wrath and the Great…

This picture, by Arthur Rothstein, was taken in April of 1936 in Cimarron County, Oklahoma (Library of Congress, 2008). Rothstein took this photo while in Boise City, Oklahoma on an assignment for Roy Stryker, of the federal government’s Farm Security Administration, to document the severity of the storms and devastation they brought. About 14 miles…

haracters”And George raised the gun and steadied it, and he brought the muzzle of it close to the back of Lennie’s head. The hand shook violently, but his face set and his hand steadied. He pulled the trigger. The crash of the shot rolled up the hills and rolled down again. Lennie jarred, and then…

In his books Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck captured the reality of the struggles that struck mankind in different forms and in various levels as he had observed during his lifetime. Steinbeck observed mainly Californians and migrants who had suffered from poverty and distress brought to them by the Depression…

The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, is a novel depicting the Okies migration to California during the period in history known as The Dustbowl. In this novel Steinbeck attempts to display the tensions between the Okies and the Californians. This display can be closely compared to today’s tensions between citizens born in the US…

Introduction: The Grapes of Wrath             The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck was a critically acclaimed novel published in 1939 which chronicled the life and times of the Joad family who struggled through poverty-stricken America during the Depression era.  While the novel’s focal point was the story of the family, it could also be…

During the 1930s, terrible clouds of dark dust were witnessed in the states of western Kansas, eastern New Mexico, western Texas, eastern Colorado, and the Oklahoma Panhandle. The clouds of dust are the ones that led to the Dust Bowl. The Dust Bowl was brought about by both human factor and ecological reasons. Following a…

The early 1900’s were a time of turmoil for farmers in the United States, especially in the Great Plains region. After the end of World War I, overproduction by farmers resulted in low prices for crops. When farmers first came to the Midwest, they farmed as much wheat as they could because of the high…

The Route 66 was a highway in the United States route system which started at Chicago and passed through Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arizona, ending at Los Angeles. It was considered the mother road due to its definitive role as a highway used in historical events such as the great depression, the dust bowl,…