The Dirty 30s

The Worst Hard Time

Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at CSU East Bay

Kevin P. Dincherwww.kevindincher.com

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Humanize the Problem Stop New Settlements/Farms Stabilize Prices Stop Erosion

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Humanize the Problem Support for

government assistance

WPA Visual Media

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Homesteading Ended in 1934 Buy back land

4 million acres Restored grassland

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Stabilize PricesSummer, 1933: Agriculture Adjustment Administration

Subsidies to create artificial scarcity

Crops were ploughed up or left to rot

6 million pigs were killed and discarded

October, 1933: Federal Surplus Relief Corporation Divert commodities

(apples, beans, canned beef and cotton) to local relief organizations

1935: Drought Relief Service Cattle

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Farm Subsidies 1922: Grain Futures

Act 1929: Agricultural

Marketing Act 1933: Agriculture

Adjustment Administration

1930: 25% of the country's

population resided on the nation's 6,000,000 small farms

Give extra money for crop Guaranteed price floor

2004-2007: wheat Paid 52 cents/bushel $3.92/bushel of wheat

Price: $3.80 Subsidy: $.52 + $.12 =

$.64

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Farm Subsidies 1922: Grain Futures

Act 1929: Agricultural

Marketing Act 1933: Agriculture

Adjustment Administration

2000 only 2% of the U.S.

population residing on farms

157,000 large farms accounted for 72% of farm sales

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2004 U.S. Crop SubsidiesCommodity Millions of US$ ShareFeed grains, mostly corn

2,841 35.4%

Cotton 1,420 17.7%Wheat 1,173 14.6%Rice 1,130 14.1%Soybeans and products

610 7.6%

Dairy 295 3.7%Peanuts 259 3.2%Sugar 61 0.8%Minor oilseeds 29 0.4%Tobacco 18 0.2%Wool and mohair 12 0.1%Vegetable oil products 11 0.1%Honey 3 0.0%Other crops 160 2.0%Total 8,022 100%

1934 Frazier–

Lemke Farm Bankruptcy Act

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1934 Frazier–Lemke Farm Bankruptcy Act

Delayed foreclosure of a bankrupt farmers' property for five years

During that 5 years, farmer made rental payments

The farmer could then buy back the property or remain in possession as a paying tenant

Purchase: Current appraised value 6 years 1% interest

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Stop Erosion1933: Soil Erosion Service

Department of the Interior Hugh Bennett

1935: Soil Conservation Service Department of Agriculture

1994: Natural Resources Conservation Service

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Stop Erosion1933: Soil Erosion Service

Technical Assistance to farmers

Early years Studies/surveys

Educate farmers crop rotation strip farming contour plowing terracing

1937 $1/acre

1938 65% reduction in

blowing soil 1939

drought ended

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Stop Erosion1933: Soil Erosion Service

Technical Assistance to farmers

1934: Great Plains Shelterbelt 200 million trees Abilene, Tx to Canadian Border 1942:

30,233 shelterbelts 220 million trees 100 miles wide 18,600 miles long $75 million

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1939 Drought ended

1940-1944 Amount of land

devoted to wheat farming expanded by 3 million acres

Dust Bowl: $5 WW II: $50 - $100

Timothy Egan: "a classic tale of

human beings pushing too hard against nature, and nature pushing back."

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1950s

174,000 mi²

Underlies about 80 percent of the High Plains

30% of all ground water used for irrigation in the United States

drinking water to 82% of the people who live on the High Plains

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Rate of extraction exceeds the rate of recharge, water level elevations are decreasing

Overall water levels have dropped about 10%

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Environmental Controversies

1980s: Nuclear Waste Site (Deaf Smith County, TX)

2008: Keystone Pipeline

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500,000 acres of U.S. National Park Badlands National Park Theodore Roosevelt National Park Carlsbad Caverns National Park Wind Cave National Park

15 National Historic Sites

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1937: Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act

20 National Grasslands (3,838,280 acres) Like National Forests: may be open for hunting,

grazing, mineral extraction, recreation and other uses

1 Grassland Preserve

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Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, Kansas

Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, Oklahoma

Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie, Illinois

Tall Grass Prairie Preserve, Manitoba

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400,000 square miles of tallgrass prairie

The Nature Conservancy and the National Park Service

2009: The Nature Conservancy introduced a small herd of bison

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Largest tract of remaining tallgrass prairie in the world 45,000 acres

Owned and managed by The Nature Conservancy Chapman-Barnard ranch (Ben Johnson, Jr.) Osage Indian Reservation Retained sub-surface mineral rights

2,500 Bison

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1600: 50 million Bison Shaped the grasslands Other species

prairie dogs black-footed ferrets burrowing owls Turkeys Songbirds

1906: 1000 Bison

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1907: Bronx Zoo American Bison Society sent 15 Bison to

Oklahoma

Wichita Mountain Wildlife Refuge American Bison Rocky Mountain Elk White-tailed Deer Long-horn Cattle

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Wichita Mountain Wildlife Refuge Grassland Management Native Plants Mowing

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Wichita Mountain Wildlife Refuge Grassland Management Native Plants Mowing Fire

2013:

500,000 Bison in the US

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2013:

500,000 Bison in the US

20,000 wild Bison

Classification: lower risk but conservation dependent

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Black-footed Ferret

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“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world."

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"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.“

My First Summer in the Sierra

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"When we try to pick out anything by itself we find that it is bound fast by a thousand invisible cords that cannot be broken, to everything in the universe.”

Journal EntryJuly 27, 1869

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The Worst Hard Time

Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at CSU East Bay

Kevin P. Dincherwww.kevindincher.com

The Founding Mothers

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5 Fridays, July 26, August 2, 9, 16, 2310:30 AM to 12:30 PM