A Song of the Dust Bowl Aside by Governments to Try to Prevent Another Stories and Songs Were Written About the Dust Bowl

Home , Black Sunday (storm), Singing the Blues

The Blues: More LEVELED BOOK • X Than a Feeling A Reading A–Z Level X Leveled Book Word Count: 1,846 The Blues: More Than a Feeling

Written by Sherry Sterling

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Written by Sherry Sterling The Blues: More Than a Feeling Level X Leveled Book Correlation © Learning A–Z LEVEL X Written by Sherry Sterling Fountas & Pinnell S All rights reserved. Reading Recovery 40 DRA 40 www.readinga-z.com www.readinga-z.com What Are the Blues? What are the blues, and how do you know if you’ve had them or heard them? Let’s start with the feeling . Have you ever felt down or sad? If so, then you’ve had the blues . The blues are a feeling that things just aren’t going your way, and everybody gets this feeling from time to time . What’s different is how people choose to deal with the blues—some people cry, others eat, some talk to friends or paint a picture, and still others sing . Table of Contents People have always used music as one way What Are the Blues? ...... 4 to express their feelings, and often they feel Where Did the Blues Come From? ...... 5 better after they have sung or played music . Music that expresses feelings of sadness through the Elements of Blues ...... 7 words or the melody has become known as the Call and Response ...... 8 blues . The blues is a form of music that came out of the American South . It is one of the few types African Roots ...... 10 of music to originate in the United States . Queens of the Blues ...... 12 Delta Blues ...... 15 Blues Move North and Beyond ...... 17 Blues Influence on Today’s Music ...... 20 Check It Out ...... 22 Glossary ...... 23

Index ...... 24 Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee, is known for blues music.

The Blues: More Than a Feeling • Level X 3 4 Many of the slaves in the southern United Southern Cotton Production States created songs to pass the time as they worked in the fields or when they had time off . Many of these songs expressed their longing for their homelands, their beliefs, or their feelings SC about the poor conditions in which they lived GA MS AL and worked . From these songs of sadness grew TX LA ATLANTIC the music known as the blues . OCEAN The only way to hear music in the 1700s FL and through the mid-1800s was to hear a live Major production areas 1860 performance, so blues music stayed largely in the South . Then, in the 1870s, came the invention of the phonograph . The phonograph brought blues Where Did the Blues Come From? from the back porches and fields of a few people into the living rooms of many . In the 1700s, the southern states now known as Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, With the invention of the Louisiana, and Texas were planting fields of phonograph, blues music spread . cotton to try to meet the clothing needs of a Record companies discovered growing nation . More cotton was being grown that people would pay money than there were people to work the fields . to buy blues music for their phonographs . The record Slaves were brought by force companies started searching from their homelands to help plant for more blues musicians . More and harvest the cotton . Slaves people heard blues music and were people who were considered liked it . As the music became The phonograph, property, so they worked without or record popular, more people learned being paid and often received little player, helped how to play and to sing the blues . make blues food or personal comforts . music popular.

The Blues: More Than a Feeling • Level X 5 6 The guitar became an important blues instrument.

Elements of Blues Many bands have used washboards and jugs like the ones used here. How do you know if you’ve heard the blues? Blues music contains three key elements: beat, Call and Response voice, and instruments . The beat keeps a strong The most distinctive element of early blues is rhythm that is driven by a guitar, not by the drums its style of call and response, a kind of song that as in most rock ‘n’ roll . When you hear blues music, repeats, like an echo . This call-and-response style you can easily tap your toe or clap along with the came from work songs sung by slaves . A lead beat . The voices singing the blues are more about singer would sing, or call, a line; then the group the emotion of the song than hitting specific notes . would give a response by repeating the line . Early blues music consisted of a singer playing In most blues music today, the singer sings one a guitar or piano and, sometimes, a harmonica . line, repeats it (usually word for word), and then People added whatever instruments they had comments about it in the third line . For example: or could make, such as drums, washboards, jugs, and kazoos . As blues music became more popular, “I woke up this morning, feeling oh so bad . . . people added horns and woodwinds, such as I woke up this morning, feeling oh so bad . . . trumpets, trombones, saxophones, and clarinets . Thinking about my homework made me oh so sad.”

The Blues: More Than a Feeling • Level X 7 8 It’s not only the words involved in this African Roots call-and-response style—it’s the music itself . The slaves who influenced early blues music The instruments in the blues get almost as much brought their work songs from West Africa— attention in the songs as the voices . Often the what are now the nations of Senegal and Gambia . instruments become like voices, answering the Because many were singer by repeating the singer’s notes and plantation farmers sometimes adding more of their own . before being brought west as slaves, they had developed songs saxophone specific to their work on the farm: trumpet “After the planting, if the gods bring rain, My family, my ancestors, be rich as Drums are an important element of much African music. they are beautiful.” Much African music was tied to the details of daily life . Africans had a song for when children lost their first tooth and other songs and dances that told their history . These songs were important clarinet since they were a way to pass on traditions . Every event—from births and deaths to plantings and

drums harvests—was celebrated with call-and-response singing, drumming, and clapping . Gradually, the guitar words of many songs changed to reflect their new Instruments Used and difficult lives as slaves . in Blues Music

The Blues: More Than a Feeling • Level X 9 10 Queens of the Blues Slave Trade Routes in the Mid-1600s The roots of the blues started with African slaves of every age and gender, but the roots of recorded blues started with women . Called

NORTH “Queens of the Blues,” these singers tried to AMERICA Southern appeal to all kinds of people, and their music slave holding became known as classic blues . These women areas AFRICA started as entertainers in vaudeville, a type of stage entertainment, or in traveling tent shows . With voices so vibrant that they didn’t need a microphone to be heard, blues queens developed a style that excited everyone . Slave SOUTH gathering AMERICA areas

Music in Language Africans held special meetings to pass on traditions from elder to younger tribal members. They called one another to these meetings with drums. West African language was (and still is) a “pitch-tone” language, with words that change meaning depending on whether they are spoken with a high, middle, or low sound. West Africans developed drumming to imitate their language so they could clearly communicate with each other over long distances. One drum called; another responded. Later, blues music picked up this call-and-response drumming and used it with other instruments, such as horns and saxophones. Ma Rainey and her Georgia Jazz Band recorded blues music in 1923.

The Blues: More Than a Feeling • Level X 11 12 In the late 1910s, record executives recognized that women blues singers, such as Mamie Smith, backed by jazz bands could make a lot of money for their record companies, so they went looking for more . Within a year of Mamie Smith’s recording of “Crazy Blues,” the market was flooded with singers . Two of the most famous, in addition to Mamie Smith, were Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith . Gertrude “Ma” Rainey was called the “mother of the blues”; having performed in tent shows for 25 years before being recorded, she already had a large following . In the 1920s, Bessie Mamie Smith recorded Crazy Blues with Willie “The Lion” Smith on piano Smith, “empress of the blues,” became the highest and her Jazz Hounds in 1920. paid black performer in the world, earning $2,000 a week . Two people in particular were responsible for helping to get blues music recorded . These two people were W . C . Handy, called the “father of Think About It the blues” because he wrote down and publicized $2,000 a week—what the blues, and Perry Bradford, a blues composer did it mean to make that eager for fame . Bradford convinced a studio, much in the 1920s? The average cost of a car back called Okeh, to record two of his tunes sung by then was about $265. Mamie Smith . Okeh sold every copy of the Bessie could have bought recording within weeks, with almost no seven cars each week. advertising . Okeh eagerly rushed to record Nearly 80 years later, Mamie Smith singing one of Bradford’s other the average weekly pay in songs, “Crazy Blues ”. Its off-the-chart sales the United States is $650. The average cost of a car started a nationwide craze for female blues is about $27,000. singers . The blues boom had begun .

The Blues: More Than a Feeling • Level X 13 14 One of the first known Delta blues performers was Son House . Like many male blues slide singers, he was also a preacher, and he sang spiritual Slides used by blues musicians became popular with guitar players of other kinds of music, too. music to pay for his “misbehavior” of Delta Blues playing the blues . Eager to find the next blues star, record He said, “The blues companies searched throughout the South, is when you play primarily in the Mississippi Delta countryside, just one note and for talent . Rather than women singers, they it grabs you ”. found men who played in the “downhome” Lead Belly was a very popular Delta blues Son House taught or “country” blues tradition . Their music, also performer Robert Johnson, known as primitive blues, was an expression who became well-known for his unusual of black people’s individuality . These musicians talent at playing guitar . sang and played on the guitar or piano, with no Charlie Patton, the first great star of the Delta backup musicians . style, recorded blues under his own name and They made use of the slide (a knife, broken religious music under the pseudonym, or false bottleneck, brass ring, or polished bone) to slide name, of “Elder J . J . Hadley ”. He was afraid over guitar strings, imitating a voice moving people wouldn’t buy his religious music if between notes . To get a similar sound from a piano, they knew he recorded blues music, too . The they preferred out-of-tune pianos, and sometimes popularity of these Delta kings ended the era created their own by putting newspapers behind of classic female blues . the inside moving parts of an in-tune piano .

The Blues: More Than a Feeling • Level X 15 16 Blues Move North and Beyond Muddy Waters, The United States suffered what became a true blues legend known as the Great Depression in the late 1920s and the “Boss of and into the ’30s . During the Great Depression, Chicago” blues, most people did not have enough money . Jobs left the Delta and were scarce, and people stood in lines just to get moved north for a bowl of soup to eat . Although music was sung work and a better to ease the pain, record sales fell . life . He drove a truck during the day in Chicago People stand in line for bread in the 1920s. and played the blues at night . His music helped bridge a gap Muddy Waters continued to play music between Delta into the 1980s. blues and rock ’n’ After the Great Depression in the 1930s and roll . Muddy Waters was strongly influenced by with the beginning of World War II in the 1940s, Delta musicians Son House and Robert Johnson . many African Americans moved north to cities . Chicago crowds loved his raw Delta sound . Opportunities for work and school were much better in the North than in the South . Generally, Muddy is known as the first blues player to a worker made more money in one week in plug in and play an electric guitar . His uncle had northern cities than a worker made in three given him an electric guitar when Muddy first months in the South . The record companies arrived in Chicago, feeling that the noise of the wanted those northern workers to use their cash city needed a bolder sound than the acoustic to buy records, and they did . As more southerners guitar . By 1950, Muddy was making records with moved north, blues music grew in popularity . It his band, The Headhunters . began to be mixed with other musical styles .

The Blues: More Than a Feeling • Level X 17 18 Muddy Waters created urban blues and influenced rock ’n’ roll bands, especially the “British invasion” groups, such as The Beatles, that became popular in the 1960s . The band The Rolling Stones and a music magazine took their name from one of Muddy Waters’s songs, called “Rollin’ Stone ”. Other musicians who were influenced by Muddy include Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix, and Eric Clapton .

Eric Clapton The Beatles

Joe Bonamassa, a modern blues musician, started playing guitar at age four and performed with blues great B. B. King at age twelve.

Blues Influence on Today’s Music Blues has strongly influenced most modern- day music, not just a handful of musicians . It’s amazing what has come from work songs in West The Rolling Stones Africa! The type of music that is directly linked to blues is rock ’n’ roll . Rock ’n’ roll is blues music with an even bigger beat . It came directly from blues music—in fact, without the blues there would be no rock ‘n’ roll . Next to rock ‘n’ roll, the biggest music to come out of blues is called

Elvis Presley rhythm and blues, or R&B . It gets its big beat from the blues, too . The beat makes R&B music Jimi Hendrix easy to dance to .

The Blues: More Than a Feeling • Level X 19 20 The next time you have a bad case of the blues, what will you do? Put your troubles to words, and sing with feeling! Belt out a song about waiting too long, feeling sick, or missing your best friend . Go ahead and sing about clothes that don’t fit or chores your parents make you do . Or listen to someone else who sings about these things . When you are done singing your blues song, you’ll probably feel much better . Muddy Waters Check It Out For a sampling of blues music just for kids, listen to: Even Kids Get the Blues by LP Camozzi Even Kids Get the Blues by The Re-Bops To hear the legends, listen to: The Complete Recordings by Robert Johnson Bessie Smith The Bessie Smith Collection by Bessie Smith His Best by Little Walter His Best, 1947 to 1955 by Muddy Waters His Best by Howlin’ Wolf Kids sing the blues. Howlin’ Wolf

The Blues: More Than a Feeling • Level X 21 22 Glossary rhythm the regular pattern of beats in blues a type of music with a strong beat music (p . 7) that developed from African slaves people who are forced to work, are American folk songs that often tell not paid, and are regarded as being of sadness using words, voice, and property (p . 5) instruments (p . 4) vaudeville stage entertainment of slapstick call and a type of song that repeats words comedy, singing, dancing, and response and music, like an echo (p . 8) juggling performances (p . 12) composer somebody who writes music (p . 13) Index emotion a strong feeling (p . 7) blues Patton, Charlie, 16 express to make feelings and thoughts delta, 16, 18 phonograph, 6 known using words, music, or any early, 8 –10 form of communication (p . 4) emotion, 4, 7, 21 pitch-tone language, 11 primitive, 15 Great an economic crisis in the United Rainey, Gertrude “Ma”, queens, 12 Depression States that started in 1929 and 12, 14 lasted through the 1930s (p . 17) urban, 19 rhythm and blues Bradford, Perry, 13 notes symbols used in written music to (R&B), 20 show the type and length of sound call and response, 8–11 to be played (p . 7) rock ‘n’ roll, 7, 18–20 Great Depression, 17 slaves, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12 performance a show of playing, singing, or guitar, 7, 15, 16, 18 acting in front of an audience (p . 6) Smith, Bessie, 14, 22 Hadley, Elder J . J ,. 16 phonograph a record player (p . 6) Smith, Mamie, 13, 14 Handy, W . C ,. 13 plantation a large farm on which crops are vaudeville, 12 grown (p . 10) House, Son, 16, 18 Waters, Muddy, 18, 19, 22 Johnson, Robert, pseudonym a false name someone uses (p . 16) West Africa, 10, 11, 20 16, 18, 22

The Blues: More Than a Feeling • Level X 23 24 Name

Instructions: In the first row, write what you already know about blues music. In the second row, write what you would like to know. After you finish reading, fill in the third row with information you learned from reading the book.

K: What I Know The Blues: More Than a Feeling X • 1 • Level W: What Want to Know

L: What I Learned Skill: KWL / Ask and Answer Questions

Instructions: Use clues from The Blues: More Than a Feeling and what you already know to make inferences about the events or people in the book.

Clues from the Text + = INFERENCE The Blues: More Than a Feeling X • 2 • Level Skill: Make Inferences / Draw Conclusions

Instructions: Read the sentences below. Identify the independent clause, the dependent clause, and the conjunction, and write them on the lines provided.

1 Although music was sung to ease the pain, record sales fell. Independent clause: record sales fell Dependent clause: Although music was sung to ease the pain Conjunction: Although

2 As the music became more popular, more people learned how to play and sing the blues. Independent clause: Dependent clause: Conjunction:

3 These songs were important since they were a way to pass on traditions. The Blues: More Than a Feeling X • 3 • Level Independent clause: Dependent clause: Conjunction:

4 When the phonograph was invented, blues music spread. Independent clause: Dependent clause: Conjunction:

5 As more Southerners moved north, blues music grew in popularity. Independent clause: Dependent clause: Conjunction:

6 When you are done singing your blues song, you’ll probably feel much better. Independent clause: Skill: Complex Sentences Skill: Dependent clause: Conjunction:

Instructions: Find each word in the dictionary and write its definition in the middle column. Then, write one sentence that includes both words in the homophone pair. You may add suffixes such as -ed, -s, or -ing to the homophones to make them work in the sentence.

FINITION Word DE Sentence meet

meat The Blues: More Than a Feeling X • 4 • Level sew

for

four

weak Skill: Homophones Skill:

week

Written by Brian Roberts

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Dust Bowl Disaster Level X Leveled Book Correlation Written by Brian Roberts © Learning A–Z LEVEL X Written by Brian Roberts Fountas & Pinnell S All rights reserved. Reading Recovery 40 DRA 40 www.readinga-z.com www.readinga-z.com Introduction Hurricanes . Floods . Forest fires . Earthquakes . Every year these natural disasters strike somewhere on Earth . But during the late 1920s and 1930s, two disasters of another kind swept the United States, inflicting pain and suffering on its people . These disasters were particularly troublesome because they lasted for years rather than hours or days, creating hardships for thousands upon thousands of people .

The first blow was not a natural disaster but an economic one . This disaster became known as the Great Depression . It began with the crash of the stock market in 1929 . Table of Contents Introduction ...... 4 The stock market began falling and by the time it stopped falling, stocks were worth about From Prosperity to Poverty ...... 6 20 percent of their previous value . People lost Living in a Dust Bowl ...... 9 their life savings, their jobs, and many of their possessions . Banks and factories closed . Living to Tell Their Story ...... 12

Leaving the Dust Bowl ...... 16

The Government Steps In ...... 19

Conclusion ...... 22

Glossary ...... 23

Index ...... 24

Dust Bowl Disaster • Level X 3 4 The Dust Bowl region CANADA

N. Minnesota Montana Dakota S. Wyoming Dakota Nebraska Iowa UNITED Missouri Colorado STATES Kansas

New Oklahoma Mexico

Texas Great Plains

Dust Bowl area MEXICO

Hardest hit area Wheat fields cover the plains as far as the eye can see.

The Great Depression was not limited to From Prosperity to Poverty the United States . It spread to other countries Farmers in the Great Plains had been throughout the world and became the worst prospering for decades before the Dust Bowl economic slump in history . struck . World War I (1914–1918) prevented To make matters worse, the second blow to European farmers from growing wheat, so strike during the 1930s dried up the soil just like farmers in North America sold their wheat to money dried up during the stock market crash . buyers who shipped it overseas . The demand It affected the southern region of the Great Plains for wheat drove prices upward . Farmers plowed of the United States, covering large parts of up more and more of the grasslands to feed the Texas, Kansas, Colorado, and Oklahoma, but also needs of European countries . The farmers of the stretching throughout the Great Plains and into Great Plains continued to prosper while many the prairies of Canada . The disaster was labeled others suffered under the Great Depression . the Dust Bowl, and the period of history became But the prosperity would soon end . known as the Dirty Thirties .

Dust Bowl Disaster • Level X 5 6 Plowing up the grasslands to grow more wheat caused two problems that the farmers did not expect . First, it made so much wheat available that wheat prices began to drop . Storage bins became filled to capacity, and farmers began to dump their harvested wheat onto the ground and onto roads .

A choking dust storm whips across the plains.

Second, when the Great Plains entered a period Math Minute of prolonged drought, plowing up the grasslands From July 1930 to July 1931, wheat prices caused the fields to dry up . With too little moisture dropped from 68¢ a bushel to 25¢ a bushel. to support crops, the fields were left bare . From In 1930, farmer Beck planted 100 acres one hot summer to another, the sun baked the soil . of wheat and harvested 12 bushels per acre. When winds increased, the exposed dry dirt was In 1931, he planted another 100 acres and whipped up into dark clouds of choking dust that harvested 12 bushels per acre. How much more did he make in 1930 than he did in 1931? swept across the land . The thick, billowing walls of dirt hid the sun and forced people to light lamps in the midday darkness .

Dust Bowl Disaster • Level X 7 8 Living in a Dust Bowl Still, the dust found its way into homes and For years, the Dust Bowl gripped the Great into the bodies of every living creature . It clogged Plains . Every time the wind whipped up the up motors in cars and trucks . Livestock wandered dirt and carried it skyward, another dust storm blindly in the clouds of dust . Many animals fell moved across the Great Plains . These storms dead when their lungs became caked with dust . took on names like dusters and black blizzards . Outside, dust piled up like snowdrifts during People living in the plains did everything they a blizzard . The only difference was that the dust could to keep the dust from entering their homes drifts did not melt . They just got higher and higher, and their lungs . Windows burying tools, farm equipment, and small buildings . and doors were stuffed Do You Know? Roads had to be plowed, and trains were literally with newspapers and rags . A mysterious disease stopped on tracks covered by heaps of dirt . Men, women, and children known as dust pneumonia tied rags over their faces . infected thousands of Conditions got so bad that winds carried the people living in the Children even went to bed dust eastward to fall across cities such as Chicago, path of the dust storms. with damp cloths over The disease killed men, Atlanta, and New York . Dust even blew over the their mouths and noses to women, and children, Atlantic Ocean and fell upon decks of ships at sea . keep the dust out . especially the very young and the very old. A tractor sits unused after being buried by the dust.

A farmer puts on a mask Word Wise before During the winter, winds often whipped up a mixture of working. snow and dust. These storms became known as snusters.

Dust Bowl Disaster • Level X 9 10 Visualize Take a moment and think of what it must have been like on April 14, 1935. Draw a picture of the scene as you visualize it.

The Black Sunday storm nearly overwhelms a couple of people.

Living to Tell Their Story Some people who lived through the Dust Bowl The Black Sunday storm approaches a town in the Texas panhandle. recorded accounts of their experiences . Perhaps the worst day of all during the Dust Melt White of Dalhart, Texas, was just a Bowl occurred on Black Sunday—April 14, 1935 . child when Black Sunday occurred . He described The day began with the sun rising in a clear blue his memories of that day in interviews for a eastern sky and a gentle breeze whispering from documentary film about the Dust Bowl . the west . Without warning, a gigantic wall of dirt and dust appeared on the horizon and rushed He described the wind blowing very hard and across the rolling plains at 60 miles (96 5. km) per the house shaking violently . He was frightened hour . It rushed eastward so fast that the storm that the house might blow away . Outside, the swallowed up birds and rabbits trying to out-fly dust filled the sky until it became very dark . and outrun it . Animals dropped to the ground, He tried to see his hand in front of his face and dying of exhaustion and suffocation . People ran couldn’t . He kept bringing his hand closer to his for any shelter they could reach—sheds, barns, face . It was so dark that even when he touched homes, and cars . his nose with his hand, he couldn’t see it .

Dust Bowl Disaster • Level X 11 12 One Kansas farmer, Lawrence Svobida, kept During an extensive written record of his experience and With the Great Plains gripped in a drought, later wrote a book about being a farmer on the Svobida’s thoughts were much different . He Great Plains before, during, and after the Dust described the wind and the dust that cut visibility Bowl . Here is a description of what he said: to almost nothing . People’s eyes would be filled Before with dust and wearing goggles didn’t even help . Svobida described the beauty of seeing many In a documentary film, Svobida talks about the miles of waist-high wheat fields swaying in the ferocity of the wind and how it seemed to never breeze . He could think of nothing in the world stop . He had never even imagined such a wind . It more beautiful than a golden wheat field in the felt to him like everything would be blown away, summer sun . The sight would take his breath away . and wherever he looked, his fields were empty .

In his book, Svobida wrote about how the experience changed his feelings on farming, which had once provided him with joy . When he knew his crops were irrevocably gone, he described feeling as if there had been a death . Nature had flouted his desire to work the land and the dreams he had of being a farmer . He felt like giving up on everything, including any attempts to make During the Dust Bowl, farmers hoped to see blowing wheat instead of blowing dust. something of his life .

Dust Bowl Disaster • Level X 13 14 Not much was left for cattle to eat in Oklahoma in 1936.

Leaving the Dust Bowl People living in the Great Plains were hearty souls who settled the area when there were no houses, water wells, roads, or fields . They were accustomed to difficult

Farmers wait for rain that won’t come for years. times . Many persevered one way or another through the After Dirty Thirties . When they Svobida, like many others, still clung to the couldn’t grow wheat, they hope that rain would end the drought . In his turned to raising thistles and book, he talked about searching the sky every day a plant called soapweed, for rainclouds . He watched his neighbors’ crops which could be chopped up die out one by one, until finally the skies poured and fed to livestock . Soapweed out five inches of precipitation over two days . Many farmers turned to raising dairy cattle The water soaked into the soil and finally stopped at the beginning of the Dust Bowl years . Part of the dust and drought . the milk was skimmed off and fed to pigs and Eventually, inhaling blowing dust for years chickens . But as the drought worsened, farmers seriously affected Lawrence Svobida’s health . He could no longer raise enough feed for their cattle had to admit defeat and leave the Great Plains . and other livestock .

Dust Bowl Disaster • Level X 15 16 With no source of income, farmers grew tired John Steinbeck and hungry . Many could not keep up payments John Steinbeck describes the and his book on their farms . They eventually left the Great The Grapes westward Plains to seek a better life elsewhere . Thousands of Wrath migration in his were drawn westward to famous 1939 novel Do You California to seek work in The Grapes of Wrath . Know? the state’s rich farmlands . But He wrote about By the end there were fewer jobs there the hundreds of of the 1930s, than there were people . thousands of people 2.5 million people had left the who came over the Plains states. mountains towards Two hundred California . They thousand of came in cars loaded them ended up with all their worldly possessions in California. and often slept in their cars or in tents . Some formed caravans, or groups of cars that traveled together, for safety . People didn’t stay in one place long . They were always moving, searching for work, and desperate for food .

Think About It Imagine coming to the Great Plains in the early 1900s and starting a farm. You have built a home, dug a well for water, plowed up grassland to grow wheat, and raised a family. A drought comes and makes it difficult to grow crops. What do you do? Do you stick it out? How do you survive? Or do you pull up stakes and move to another place?

Dust Bowl Disaster • Level X 17 18 The Government Steps In Roosevelt also provided other programs to help It was clear that people living in the weary farmer . Some of these programs were: the Great Plains needed help . They 1933 – The Emergency Farm Act were losing their land, their farms, The act set aside $200 million to help farmers who and their hope . Franklin Roosevelt could not make payments on their farms to refinance Millions more had their bank loans. lost their jobs because 1935 – Drought Relief Service of the Great Depression and The government bought cattle from farmers to had no hope of finding new prevent farmers from becoming bankrupt. The jobs . All were hungry and government paid them more than they could have received from selling on the regular market. poor . Many were dying . 1935 – Soil Conservation Service In 1932, the citizens of This service developed programs to stop soil erosion the United States had elected and paid farmers to use soil-conserving methods Roosevelt’s inauguration Franklin Roosevelt as their to farm. next president . He quickly offered a program for 1937 – Shelterbelt Project recovery known as the New Deal, which included This project paid farmers to plant trees all across the government agencies and programs to help Great Plains. Trees planted along fencerows would stop wind from carrying away soil. farmers and unemployed workers .

Roosevelt appointed Hugh Bennett, a man well-known for his work in soil conservation, as director of a new agency called the Soil Erosion Service . Bennett worked to change farming The plan of the methods in order to help stop blowing dirt Shelterbelt in its tracks . He worked to convince Congress project was to plant four million to pass the Soil Conservation Act of 1935. trees, stretching from the Canadian border down into Texas.

Dust Bowl Disaster • Level X 19 20 In addition to these programs, the New Deal offered many programs aimed at creating jobs for all those who were out of work . The largest of these programs was known as the Works Progress Administration (WPA) . The WPA employed millions after it was created in 1935 .

Pawnee National Grasslands, Colorado, is just one of several areas protected by the government to help prevent another Dust Bowl.

Conclusion As the Dirty Thirties drew to a close, rain clouds began to replace dust clouds . The drought was finally over for much of the Great Plains and the Canadian Prairie in the early 1940s . Farmers went back to planting wheat . Familiar golden fields waved across the plains once again; however, farming methods had changed and thousands of acres of grasslands had been set A Song of the Dust Bowl aside by governments to try to prevent another Stories and songs were written about the Dust Bowl. Dust Bowl . Perhaps the most famous songs coming out of the Dust Bowl years were written by popular folk singer and By 1939, World War II had started in Europe, writer, Woody Guthrie. Of his many songs, So Long and by 1941, North America was in the war . With It’s Been Good to Know Yuh (Dusty Old Dust) and Dust the coming of the war, much of the world pulled Bowl Blues were two of his best known. Above, Guthrie out of the Great Depression . The two clouds of plays to a New York City crowd in the 1940s. the Dirty Thirties had lifted .

Dust Bowl Disaster • Level X 21 22 Glossary migration a movement from one location to another (p . 18) conservation efforts to preserve, protect, and restore natural resources (p . 19) precipitation moisture, such as rain, that falls from clouds (p . 15) disasters sudden terrible events (p . 4) prosperity success or good fortune (p . 6) drought a long dry spell without rainfall that causes a water shortage (p . 8) recovery the return of something to a normal state after a setback or loss (p . 19) dust a disease of the lungs caused by pneumonia breathing lots of dust (p . 9) unemployed lacking a paid job, but able and Dust Bowl a disaster that struck the USA in the available to work (p . 19) 1930s (p . 5) dust storm a whirlwind that causes dust to fill Index the air (p . 9) Bennett, Hugh, 19 Roosevelt, Franklin, economic related to buying and selling Black Sunday, 11, 12 19, 20 of goods and services (p . 4) Dirty Thirties, 5, 16, 22 soap weed, 16 erosion the gradual wear on land surfaces Great Depression, 4–6, Steinbeck, John, 18 by water, wind, or ice (p . 19) 19, 22 Stock Market, 4, 5 flouted treated as meaningless (p . 14) Great Plains, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, Svobida, Lawrence, grasslands open areas where grass is the main 13–22 13–15 vegetation (p . 6) Guthrie, Woody, 21 White, Melt, 12 Great the severe downturn of the U .S . and New Deal, 19, 20 World Wars, 6, 22 Depression world economy from 1929 to 1939 (p . 4) Great Plains a flat, mostly treeless region of the central United States and Canada (p . 5) income money that is received from work or another source (p . 17) irrevocably cannot be taken back (p . 14)

Dust Bowl Disaster • Level X 23 24 © ProQuest Information and Learning Company All rights reserved. rights All Company Learning and Information ProQuest © what you’d justread. Write adescriptionbeloweachpicturetoexplainyourdrawing. Instructions: Drawpicturestorepresentpartsinthestorywhereyoustoppedvisualizeorderunderstand Name ______http://www.readinga-z.com

SKILL: VISUALIZE DUST BOWL DISASTER • LEVEL X • 1 Name ______Instructions: As you read, list causes in the left-hand column and their effects in the right-hand column.

Cause Effect DUST BOWL DISASTER • LEVEL X • 2 SKILL: CAUSE AND EFFECT

© ProQuest Information and Learning Company All rights reserved. http://www.readinga-z.com Name ______Instructions: Use the list of prepositions below to create your own prepositional phrases using the prompts provided. Write each sentence containing a prepositional phrase on the lines.

about above across after along among around at

behind below beneath beside between by during in

of on out through under upon with without DUST BOWL DISASTER • LEVEL X • 3 1. The Great Depression ______

______

2. Farmers in the Great Plains ______

______

3. A prolonged drought ______

______

4. The wind ______

______

5. Farmers migrated ______

______

6. Franklin Roosevelt ______

______SKILL: PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES ______

Image: Courtesy of © ProQuest Information and Learning Company All rights reserved. Library of Congress, P&P Div [LC-USZ62-117121] http://www.readinga-z.com Name ______Instructions: Write a sentence containing a simile for each topic in the box. Write each simile in a space under the heading Simile. Then draw a picture next to the sentence of what you visualize after reading your simile under the heading Visualize.

Simile Visualize farmers DUST BOWL DISASTER • LEVEL X • 4

Great Depression

drought

Dust Bowl SKILL: SIMILES