The Dust Bowl Odyessy

Dust Bowl Odyssey

The Dust Bowl Odyssey begins with an excerpt from the famous novel The Grapes of Wrath written by John Steinbeck. The novel told the story of the Joad family during the depression era and their journey from Oklahoma to California in hopes of getting their lives back on track. The book, which was written in 1939, was Steinbecks attempt to not only describe the plight of migrant farm workers during the Depression but to also offer sharp criticism of the polities that has caused the predicament in the first place. The novel is often recognized as a chronicle of the Depression and as a commentary of the economic and social systems that caused it.
The “Dust Bowl” phenomenon occurred throughout western Oklahoma and Kansas and in the Texas panhandle. Severe drought during the 1930’s had led to massive agricultural failures in the Southwest. These areas had been heavily overcultivated by the wheat farmers for the last decades and were covered with millions of...