Allison Lassieur - The Dust Bowl: An Interactive History Adventure

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YOU are living in the United States during the 1930s. The Great Depression has gripped the country, causing people to lose their farms, jobs, and homes. How will you survive?

In this book, youll explore how the choices people made meant the difference between life and death. The events youll experience happened to real people.

Chapter One sets the scene. Then you choose which path to read. Follow the links at the bottom of each page as you read the stories. The decisions you make will change your outcome. After you finish one path, go back and read the others for new perspectives and more adventures. Use your device's back buttons or page navigation to jump back to your last choice.

YOU CHOOSE the path you take through history.

Long before the first European explorers came, American Indians and the buffalo lived throughout the Great Plains. This wide prairie stretches from Canada all the way south to Texas. It spreads east of the Rocky Mountains to the eastern Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma.

In the mid- to late 1800s, the U.S. government forced American Indians to live on reservations. The government encouraged settlers to farm the fertile land. By the 1920s, farming in the Great Plains was booming. A few years of heavy rainfall produced huge yields of wheat and other crops. Owners of large farms got rich.

In the 1920s, farmers in the Great Plains plowed thousands of acres of land.

Then two things happened that helped create a disaster. In 1929, the crashed. People had been buying shares of companies on the stock market to make money. Prices of stocks kept going higher. Some people made a lot of money.

People swarmed the streets near the New York Stock Exchange on October 29, 1929.

But on Tuesday, October 29, stock market prices fell about 80 percent. People panicked and tried to sell their shares. The stock market crash caused many companies and banks to go out of business. People were left with no money and no jobs. Crop prices fell. People called it the Great Depression.

In 1931, the second part of the disaster began. Rainfall sharply decreased in parts of the Great Plains. The Plains had experienced before, but the rains had always returned. Not this time. Hot winds blew across the land, taking millions of tons of soil with it.

The southern Great Plains, including parts of Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Kansas, and Colorado, dried up and blew away. A reporter calls the area the Dust Bowl, and the name sticks.

You and millions of other people are living with the horror of the Dust Bowl. Some are determined to stay on their farms. Many give up and move to large cities or to California to start a new life. Others travel to the Dust Bowl to write stories and take photos for the rest of the world to see.

You stand on the porch of your white clapboard house and look out onto the Kansas land. Farm life is all youve ever known. Three years ago, in 1929, you married your girlfriend, Nettie. Your daughter, Ruby, was born the next year. Your father gave you enough land to start a farm of your own.

Last year, 1931, a drought caused crop failures in other parts of Kansas. But its not just the drought that has you worried. The crash of 1929 hurt everyone. You took your savings out of the bank before it closed. The money is hidden under a loose floorboard in the kitchen.

A combination of drought and insects killed crops in the Dust Bowl.

You had planned to plant wheat this fall. But a neighbor tells you to raise cattle instead. Your farm includes grassy pastures where cattle can graze. Cattle wont dry up and blow away, your neighbor says, laughing.

Last year was a bumper crop for wheat. You think you can make money with wheat this year too. True, prices did go down a little from last year. But youre sure the drop was temporary. Once the fields are planted, its time to wait for the rain.

You wait. And wait. The sun beats down onto your fields. The newspaper brings more bad news. Wheat prices continue to fall. Last years huge wheat crop flooded the market and brought down prices.

One morning, you go to the fields and walk through the drooping wheat. You barely notice as the sky darkens. Then the wind picks up. You see a large, dark cloud coming toward you. Its a dust storm! Should you run for the house or stay where you are?

The black cloud barrels across the fields, making a loud, rushing sound. You run to the house as fast as you can. You get inside just as the storm hits. Its black as night inside the house. You hear Nettie and little Ruby crying. You feel in the darkness until you find the kerosene lamp and light it. The light barely makes a dent in the darkness.

The furious wind rattles the windows and doors. Dust pours through the cracks and fills the air, making you cough. After two hours, the terrible howling wind finally stops. Everything in the house is covered with dirt, including you, Nettie, and Ruby. The grit sticks to the roof of your mouth and between your teeth. In a daze, you open the door and go outside.

Huge clouds of dust rolled through the sky, wiping out the sun.

The wheat field is gone. Everything is covered with dirt and dust. You and Nettie begin shoveling the dirt out of the house.

As you are dumping a bucket of dirt in the ditch, an old truck comes wheezing down the road. You dont recognize the man driving it, but he stops and waves.

My name is Smith, the man says. I own the land west of here. Im going to town to see how others fared. You should come too.

You get into your old truck and head into town. When the crops were good, the town was a busy place. Now most of the businesses are closed. Wind rattles through broken windows. Tumbleweeds skip down the dusty street.

A small crowd is gathered at the general store. A few people lost cattle in the storm. But several farmers, like you, lost their entire crop.