-
Severe drought hits the Midwestern and Southern Plains. As the crops die, the “black blizzards” begin. Dust from the over-plowed and over-grazed land begins to blow.
-
The number of dust storms is increasing. Fourteen are reported this year; next year there will be 38.
-
Over 6 million young pigs are slaughtered to stabilize prices. With most of the meat going to waste, public outcry will lead to the creation, in October, of the Federal Surplus Relief Corporation. The FSRC will divert agricultural commodities to relief organizations. Apples, beans, canned beef, flour and pork products will be distributed through local relief channels. Cotton goods are eventually included to clothe the needy as well.
-
When Franklin Roosevelt takes office, the country is in desperate straits. He will take quick steps to declare a four-day bank holiday, during which time Congress will come up with the Emergency Banking Act of 1933, which stabilizes the banking industry and restores people’s faith in the banking system by putting the federal government behind it.
-
Great dust storms spread from the Dust Bowl area. The drought is the worst ever in U.S. history, covering more than 75 percent of the country and affecting 27 states severely.
-
FDR approves the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act, which provides $525 million for drought relief, and authorizes creation of the Works Progress Administration, which will employ 8.5 million people.
-
The SCS publishes a soil conservation district law, which, if passed by the states, would allow farmers to set up their own districts to enforce soil conservation practices for five-year periods. One of the few grassroots organizations set up by the New Deal still in operation today, the soil conservation district program recognized that new farming methods needed to be accepted and enforced by the farmers on the land rather than bureaucrats in Washington.
-
FDR’s Shelterbelt Project begins. The project calls for large-scale planting of trees across the Great Plains, stretching in a 100-mile wide zone from Canada to northern Texas, to protect the land from erosion. Native trees, such as red cedar and green ash, are planted along fence rows separating properties, and farmers and workers from the Civilian Conservation Corps are paid to plant and cultivate them. The project is estimated to cost 75 million dollars over a period of 12 years.
-
The extensive work re-plowing the land into furrows, planting trees in shelterbelts, and other conservation methods has resulted in a 65 percent reduction in the amount of soil blowing. However, the drought continues.
-
in the fall, the rain comes, finally bringing an end to the drought. During the next few years, with the coming of World War II, the country is pulled out of the Depression and the plains once again become golden with wheat.