The Worst Hard Time The Untold Story Of Those Who Survived The Great American Dust Bowl

Matthew Royal

Great anecdotes of everyday life in the midwest from the time it was known as the Great American Desert, then a green new promised land, during the Dust Bowl, and finally when it started to rain again-- many of the stories sound like how I imagine life on Mars would be: from the air dangerous to life to dragging a metal chain under your car to discharge the car-crippling electric build up from dust storms. 

The importance of the New Deal's soil conservation efforts are mentioned in passing. I would have liked more details about what the 4H folks and the soil conservers did -- they have been so effective that they're the only New Deal initiative that continues to this day. 

Surprisingly, the author uses the end of the book to advocate the elimination of farm subsidies, saying that they were intended to help small, family farmers, but they have since been redirected to large corporate farms.

Dana Kraft

Lots of interesting info, especially about who lived in the high plains and why they moved there. The dust storm info seemed to get repetitive, but I enjoyed the stories of the people who lived through that time.

Catherine Nicolai

"Black Sunday, April 14, 1935, day of the worst duster of them all. The storm carried twice as much dirt as was dug out of the earth to create the Panama Canal. The canal took seven years to dig; the storm lasted a single afternoon. More than 300,000 tons of Great Plains topsoil was airborne that day."

The Worst Hard Time The Untold Story Of Those Who Survived The Great American Dust Bowl

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