In the mid 1930s, the Southwestern United States experienced an ecological disaster that turned a once beautiful landscape into, well, a dust bowl.
A combination of severe drought and over-farming meant that top soil was dryer, and much looser than it had ever been before. The result was devastating dust storms that buried communities, and destroyed lives.
Here are 25 photos to give you a quick glimpse into the hardships of the Dust Bowl. You might need to brush them off.
1
A Dust Bowl Farmer
Digging out a fence post to keep it from being buried under drifting sand in Cimarron County, Okla., in 1936.
2
A Car
Drives through the Dust Bowl, Texas, 1936.
3
Abandoned Farm With Windmill
Farm equipment, Dalhart, Texas. June 1938.
4
Texas Children Going to School During the Dust Bowl in 1936
Face coverings used to prevent sand pneumonia.
5
Dunes
In the Oklahoma panhandle.
6
A Dust Storm
Engulfing the residents of Tyrone, Oklahoma. April 14, 1935.
7
Black Blizzards
One of South Dakota's storms, 1934.
8
Dust Bowl Refugees
On the Great Plains, 1940.
9
"Fleeing a Dust Storm"
Farmer Arthur Coble and sons walking in the face of a dust storm, Cimarron County, Oklahoma. 1936. Photo by Arthur Rothstein.
10
Dust Storm Aftermath
Cimarron County, Oklahoma, April 1936.
11
Drought Refugees in California
Dust Bowl migrants photographed by Dorothea Lange, February 1936.
12
Dust Storm
Approaching a small town in Oklahoma.
13
Farm Machinery
Buried by a dust storm near a barn lot in Dallas, South Dakota, May 1936.
14
Two Men Head to Los Angeles
Fleeing dust storm-devastated Oklahoma. March 1937.
15
Abandoned Farm
North of Dalhart, Texas. 1938.
16
Dustbowl Refugees
Lordsburg NM. May, 1937.
17
Black Sunday
One of the worst storms of the Dust Bowl, ''Black Sunday” was said to have stripped the Earth of 600 million pounds of fertile Prairie topsoil. April 14, 1935.
18
Storm Dunes
Liberal, Kansas, March 1936.
19
Storm Buildup
Oklahoma, April 1936.
20
Dust Bowl Refugees
Fleeing from the drought in Oklahoma, camping by the roadside in Blythe, California. 1936. Photo by Dorothea Lange.
21
Black Sunday
The largest dust storm in the Dust Bowl, April 14 1935.
22
A Farmer
Pumping water from a well to his parched fields. Cimarron County, Oklahoma. April 1936.
23
Son of a Farmer
Dust Bowl area. Cimarron County, Oklahoma. April 1936.
24
Idaho, 1936
Children of a farmer in dust storm area.
25
Florence Owens Thompson
And three of her children at a pea pickers' camp in Nipomo, California, March, 1936.
