Avani's Blog: Dust Bowl Exhibit

The Dust Bowl in the 1930s was one of the most tragic days in United States history. It is similar to disasters nowadays such as the BP oil spill and the nuclear leak in Japan. In my opinion, the dust bowl was just as bad as these events. Animals suffocated and became blind, kids got dust pneumonia, and properties were ruined. All of the crops that farmers started to over produce were ruined. This paired with the Great Depression resulted in a great loss of money. These farmers had lost a tremendous amount of money when the dust bowl “took” these crops. I think it is important that the people of the present and the future learn about this event because it could happen again in the future. I want to create an indoor exhibit to show how the dust bowl affected people’s lives in the past. When you enter the exhibit, to the right will be a “gallery wall.” This wall will contain pictures of the houses and the region during the 1930s. While people look at these pictures, songs and stories that were made about that time will be playing. Songs such as “Dust Bowl Blues” and “Dust Bowl Refugee” by Woody Guthrie will be playing. These songs were both created in the 1930s so that people not in the regions affected could understand what the people in the region were going through. On this wall I would include the famous picture titled “Migrant Mother.” This picture would make most people feel sad about all the events that took place. This photograph is one of

the most famous pictures from the dust bowl.

I would also play some stories from the people during that time. People remember specific things from the dust bowl so I would put them on a recording and play them while people look at all the pictures. On the left side of the exhibit there will be multiple podiums with newspaper clippings from that era. This will allow for people to understand the wide range of emotions during this time. The newspaper clippings would come from this archive. In the middle of the exhibit I would have a life-sized car to show the method of transportation that some people utilized to flee the dust bowl. As we learned in the last section, cars were becoming more “popular.” Therefore more people had one and it made fleeing the dust bowl a lot easier. I would most likely have a car like the one shown below on display. People would often flee to California and start a new life. These people were not treated equally in California though.

Towards the back of the exhibit I would have a little square with dirt in it. This would allow people to touch the dirt and really understand what it would be like with dirt everywhere and on everything. The last thing in my exhibit would be a computer with all of the “missing” information. I would have some of the theories about the causes of the dust bowl on this computer. For example, NASA believes that the “Jet Stream” was responsible for the Dust Bowl. Usually the Jet Stream flows west and creates a lot of rain in the Great Plains but here the jet stream changed and traveled farther south. On the other hand, some people think the dust bowl was completely manmade. These people believe that the dust bowl was caused from “poor farming practices and [a] lack of environmental understanding.” I would also have some interesting facts about the dust bowl on the computer. Some of the interesting facts include that the dust bowl, at times, reached all the way to Washington D.C. and that the dust bowl created a plague of grasshoppers and jack rabbits. I think the most important thing to know about the dust bowl is that after the dust bowl the government tried to enforce proper farming techniques but ultimately these did not succeed. It is also important to note that the farmers during the 1930s were not thinking about the future. They were concerned about growing lots of crops and making money off of them. As a result of this, the dust bowl occurred. I hope that after seeing all parts of my exhibit people will learn how valuable it is to know about the dust bowl.