Chapter 9 | Section 2
The “Great Plow Up” and the Dust Bowl
Wheat grown in Oklahoma had helped feed the Allies during the First World War. Farmers ploughed and planted more than 11 million acres of grasslands, turning the grassland into wheat fields in what came to be known as the “Great Plow Up.” When the war ended in 1918, the international demand for wheat declined and wheat prices dropped from $2 to $1 per bushel. Still, wheat production continued as farmers bought modern machinery such as gas-powered tractors that pulled disc plows. Tractors worked around the clock to plow the land and get it into production. What farmers did not anticipate, though, was the crisis that would erase all their progress.
The Dust Bowl was a series of dust storms in five states caused by new agricultural practices and severe drought. The catastrophe started in the early 1930s and lasted until 1936. The dust storms did not occur in all parts of Oklahoma. Rather, the dust storms happened in the northwestern part of the state, mostly in the Panhandle, stretching west to around Woodward. In addition to Oklahoma, the Dust Bowl included portions of Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas, totaling about 100 million acres.
Beginning in the early 1930s, the Oklahoma Panhandle experienced a series of sand and dust storms sometimes reaching as high as 7,000 feet and with 50-mile-per-hour winds. These storms were like “black blizzards,” blocking out the sun and making daytime seem like nighttime. During the storms, people could not see their own hands in front of them. The wind carried away an estimated 300 million tons of topsoil. People kept the dust out of their homes by tacking up wet towels over open windows to help trap the dust and to keep the air circulating. Other times they would close the windows and try to place towels between each window and windowsill to keep dust from entering their homes.
Dust storms, sometimes called “black blizzards,” darkened the skies and left dust on everything, including food, skin, and hair. The storms could lead to dust pneumonia, which caused difficulty breathing and chest pain. This photograph taken in Hooker, Oklahoma, on June 4, 1937, shows a powerful dust storm.
Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society.
But dust came into their homes anyway. Opal Blancett grew up in Boise City in the Oklahoma Panhandle and remembers waking up each morning with a dust outline of her head on the pillow. To keep the dust from entering their lungs, many people would cover their head and face with wet tea towels made out of flour sacks to catch the dust. Some children died from dust pneumonia. Others had whooping cough caused by the dust. Sometimes the dust storms were so bad that cars had to pull off the road—even during the day with the car lights on—because it was so dark or because mounds of dust had accumulated on the road, blocking their way.
On April 14, 1935, one of the worst dust storms of the Dust Bowl wreaked havoc on the Oklahoma Panhandle. By the afternoon it was totally dark outside, and dust had filled the sky. It was one of those black blizzards. Blancett’s family was caught up in the storm. She recalled, “My mother started praying. She thought it was the end of the world. My father and my brother had gone down about a couple of miles to pick up some horse feed with the wagon. They had to walk ahead of the horses and lead them home.”
Woody Guthrie
One famous Oklahoman, Woody Guthrie, wrote the song “The Great Dust Storm” about the April 14 black blizzard:
On the 14th day of April of 1935,
There struck the worst of dust storms that ever filled the sky.
You could see that dust storm comin’, the cloud looked deathlike black,
And through our mighty nation, it left a dreadful track.
Woody Guthrie grew up in Okemah. His family endured many challenges while Woody was a child, but he had happy memories too of his father singing cowboy songs and his mother playing the piano. By his senior year of high school, Woody went to live with his father in Texas. He learned to play the guitar, banjo, fiddle, and mandolin.
Woody Guthrie, by Charles Banks Wilson. A singer-songwriter, Woody Guthrie became known as the “Oklahoma Dust Bowl Balladeer.” Some of his most famous Dust Bowl songs are “The Great Dust Storm,” “Do Re Mi,” “Tom Joad,” and “Dust Bowl Refugee.”
Courtesy of the Capitol Art Collection, Oklahoma Arts Council.
Guthrie went on to spend time in Los Angeles and had a radio program. Then he lived in New York and participated in the urban folk music revival with Alan Lomax, Pete Seeger, and others. He recorded songs about the Dust Bowl in New York. Ever on the move, his next stop was Portland, Oregon, where he wrote twenty-six songs in one month, including “Roll On, Columbia” for the Bonneville Power Authority. The song promoted hydroelectric power generated by the Grand Coulee Dam and the Bonneville Dam in Washington and Oregon.
Woody Guthrie wrote more than a thousand songs and poems. He was a major influence in folk music and social protest songwriting. One of his most famous songs, written in the 1940s in New York, is “This Land Is Your Land?” Different people have different interpretations of this song. Some view it as patriotic, while others believe it is a protest song. Guthrie wrote an original version of the song and then a revised version. Although the revised version is more familiar nowadays, the lyrics in his original version have deep meanings worth examining:
There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me.
The sign was painted, said “Private Property.”
But on the backside, it didn’t say nothing.
This land was made for you and me.
The Woody Guthrie Center is located in Tulsa. And the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival takes place annually in July in Okemah.
Families got by in northwestern Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl by planting orchards and gardens. They canned lots of fruit such as peaches and cherries from their orchards and vegetables like tomatoes from their gardens. Often families raised their own beef, hogs, and chickens, and drew milk and cream from their dairy cows. Many families lived on meat from livestock they raised themselves as well as on flour from the wheat they had taken to the mill. Many cities, such as Boise City, had their own mills. Children raised on these farms in northwest Oklahoma do not recall being hungry. Children had chores on the farm including milking the cows, feeding the animals, and helping with household chores. They were somewhat better off than their urban counterparts during the Great Depression.
People throughout the country suffered during the 1930s, but the Great Depression and Dust Bowl hit Oklahoma especially hard because the bulk of the state’s economy centered on oil and agriculture. And both industries failed.People throughout the country suffered during the 1930s, but the Great Depression and Dust Bowl hit Oklahoma especially hard because the bulk of the state’s economy centered on oil and agriculture. And both industries failed.
Latinx Communities
During the early decades of the twentieth century, small Latinx communities were growing in size throughout Oklahoma, especially in Oklahoma City and Tulsa. Latinx are people of Latin American descent, who came to Oklahoma from diverse locations, including Mexico, South and Central America, and the Caribbean. By 1930 Oklahoma City had just under one thousand residents of Mexican descent. The Mexican government opened a consulate in Oklahoma City. Many Latinos worked for the railroads and meatpacking facilities in Packingtown, today’s Stockyards City, located across the river south of the downtown area. Little Flower Catholic Church in south Oklahoma City served the Mexican community living there. A Spanish-language library opened in Oklahoma City in the late 1930s.
Beginning in the 1920s, the Little Flower Catholic Church served the growing Latinx community in south Oklahoma City. This image from the early 1930s shows a group of children attending the Little Flower School.
Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society.
By 1930 there were 294 Latinos in Tulsa, and 486 overall in Tulsa County. Many worked for the railroads and the city streetcar lines. Some worked in the coal mines. St. Catherine’s Catholic Church was an important religious and community institution in the city, serving the Latinx community that lived near the West Tulsa refinery and railyards. In addition, St. Catherine’s had a K–8 school. Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church served Mexican coal miners and their families.
In 1937, Luis Alvarado opened the restaurant El Charro in Oklahoma City. This work of art shows what El Charro looked like during the era, complete with bright reds and yellows, and a sign on the outside stating “Like a Visit to Old Mexico.” By the 1960s El Charro and about sixty other Mexican restaurants in Oklahoma and Texas combined to become the restaurant chain El Chico.
Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society.
A New Deal for Native Americans
Congress passed the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) in 1934. The driving force behind this legislation was John Collier, who served as US commissioner of Indian Affairs from 1933 to 1945. Collier called the act a “New Deal for Indians.” The IRA ended the policy of allotment and focused on restoring tribal government, building the tribal land base, and tribal economic development. The IRA was not well received by the Five Tribes and the majority of Native nations in Oklahoma, however. Collier visited Oklahoma three times, in Anadarko, Miami, and Muskogee, to promote the IRA, but he was met with resistance in many communities. In fact, when the IRA passed in 1934, Native nations in Oklahoma were exempted, as more time, discussion, and compromise were needed.
Two years later Congress passed the Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act (OIWA), extending many parts of the IRA to Native nations in Oklahoma, including the end of allotment policy, formation of tribal governments, and economic development. Under the law, ten or more Native Americans could organize as a “cooperative” enterprise that could administer credit, produce goods, or manage land. These cooperatives could also apply for federal loans to assist in starting these enterprises. And yet Native Americans in Oklahoma remained divided over OIWA. Some Native nations, mostly in western Oklahoma, drafted and ratified tribal constitutions under OIWA. These nations included the Caddo Nation, Citizen Potawatomi Nation, Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma, Sac and Fox Nation, and Tonkawa Tribe. The majority of Native nations in Oklahoma, however, did not organize under the IRA or OIWA. Following passage of OIWA, only 36,000 acres were added to the tribal land base in Oklahoma. In addition, only about 10 percent of eligible Native Americans in Oklahoma applied for OIWA loans.
Will Rogers
Each US state selects two statues to represent the state in the National Statuary Hall Collection in the US Capitol Building. Oklahoma selected two notable Cherokee citizens: Sequoyah, who developed the written Cherokee language or syllabary, and Will Rogers, the famous performer, humorist, and writer.
Will Rogers was born in 1879 near Oologah in Cherokee Nation, Indian Territory. He grew up on his family’s cattle ranch. Rogers became a performer first in vaudeville and then with the Ziegfield Follies, a New York–based show, where he developed his rope act and told humorous stories. He became known as “The Cherokee Kid.” He went on to become a movie star, radio broadcaster, syndicated newspaper columnist, and author. Some of his best-known phrases include “All I know is what I read in the papers,” and “I joked about every prominent man of my time, but I never met a man I didn’t like.” When he moved to Los Angeles, his home and ranch included polo grounds near the beach in Santa Monica. Later a portion of his California land would become Will Rogers State Beach.
Will Rogers, by Charles Banks Wilson. A citizen of the Cherokee Nation, Will Rogers was an entertainer, author, and humorist. “Will Rogers was always a Cherokee,” Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin, Jr. noted, “and he talked about it. He reminded people every day that there are Native people of this land still alive and who remain a vibrant part of America’s tapestry.”
Courtesy of the Capitol Art Collection, Oklahoma Arts Council.
In 2020 the Cherokee Nation purchased the Will Rogers Birthplace Ranch near Oologah from the Oklahoma Historical Society. In addition, the Will Rogers Memorial Museum, located in Claremore, shares the story of Will Rogers through photographs, manuscripts, and memorabilia. Will Rogers’s final resting place, alongside his wife Betty Rogers, is on the museum grounds.
This photo of Will Rogers (left) and Wiley Post (right) was taken just before their final flight on August 15, 1935. Both men were avid boosters of aviation and technology. Wiley Post had constructed a hybrid floatplane from a Lockheed Orion. He wanted to test the operational capabilities of the aircraft by embarking on a long-distance flight in Alaska with Rogers. Shortly after takeoff, Post lost control of the aircraft, and it crashed near Point Barrow, Alaska, resulting in the death of both Post and Rogers.
Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society.