The Great Depression and the Arts
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| 1930 | Eastern states experience unusually low rainfall throughout the spring and summer. |
| 1931 | Drought conditions move to the Great Plains region. |
| 1932-37 | Dust Storms hit the Southern Great Plains, severely affecting Texas, Colorado, Oklahoma, and Kansas. |
| 1933 | Agricultural Adjustment Act-AAA passed. Reductions in production and acreage contribute to evictions of tenants. "Black Blizzards" or dust storms sighted from Texas to Canada. |
| 1934 | More than 300 million tons of topsoil blown away in dust storms in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, and Colorado. Effects seen as far east as New York, Boston, and Washington, D.C. Record heat waves in mid-west result in thousands of deaths. Large migrations result. |
| 1935 | Forty spring dust storms give rise to the name "Dust Bowl" for areas suffering from drought, erosion, and blowing dirt and sand. |
| 1936 | Sixty-eight dust storms recorded. United States v. Butler strikes down AAA. Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act passed. Dorothea Lange's Migrant Mother series appears. John Steinbeck publishes In Dubious Battle and Harvest Gypsies chronicling the plight of migrants. Triple A Plowed Under "Living Newspaper" first produced. Pare Lorentz produces The Plow That Broke The Plains. |
| 1937 | Seventy-two dust storms recorded, the worst in May, June and October. Height of mass migrations. |
| 1938 | Sixty-one dust storms recorded. Second AAA (Federal Crop Insurance) adopted. |
| 1939 | John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath published. |
| 1940 | John Ford's film "The Grapes of Wrath" is released. Steinbeck receives a Pulitzer Prize and Ford receives an Oscar. House Hearings: Select Committee to Investigate Migration of Destitute Citizens begins. |
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The Great Depression and the Arts