The Dust Bowl

During my delving of the era between WWI and WWII I found interesting photos about the infamous Great Depression. We all know that the Great Depression was a time of economic failure and imbalance in wealth distribution. But there were other things happening at the time that made life for Americans even worse. For example, the Dust Bowl hit the Midwest hard and stopped farming production there leaving farmers without a job and money. The dust bowl brought dust storms causing a great amount damage to the agricultural lands of the Midwest. The dust storms were caused by unfortunate drought conditions and incorrect farming techniques that brought on erosion. Luckily the Farm Security Administration (FSA) created jobs as photographers to document what was happening to the farmers of America. They were hired to document the disaster that the Dust Bowl brought with their photos. Some of the most famous FSA alumni were Gordon Parks, Walker Evans, and Dorothea Lange. A lot of great art came from this era because it was able to clearly capture the depression of the Dust Bowl. The photographers of the FSA helped define a decade. One of the most famous Dust Bowl photos was one takes by Dorothea Lange and titled “Migrant Mother.” This photo features a depressed woman staring off in to the distance with her two offspring laying their heads on her shoulders. It is a wonderful shot because Lange managed to get just the right angle in order for the viewer to really see the depression in the woman’s eyes. The scared children in the back only add to the sadness. I can understand how that photo is the face of the Great Depression. However, there are other pictures that are astonishing. Other photographers managed to get decent shots of the huge dust storms covering entire towns. They are good shots but somehow just plain with no meaning behind it. Anyways, they FSA photographers did a great job in giving a face for the Dust Bowl and Great Depression.