Cobblestone articles from April 2003

Cobblestone archives from April 2003

Editor's note.
April 1, 2003... Imagine if you and your family had to abandon your home and head for unknown lands. What if your extended family and neighbors had to do the same? What circumstances could cause this to happen? Try to think of an event that might set off such a...

From dreams to dust: America between the world wars.
April 1, 2003... America emerged from World War I in 1918 as nation both confident and proud. Its citizens began to enjoy the peace and newfound prosperity. The 1920s saw vast economic expansion and increased participation in the democratic system. Traditional...

Sifting through the dust.
April 1, 2003... The devastation to the land on the Great Plains in the 1930s was extreme. By 1934, thirty-five million acres on the Great Plains had lost topsoil. Another 225 million acres had suffered severe erosion. What caused such incredible destruction?...

Hugh Bennett, soil scientist.
April 1, 2003... In 1935, residue from a Great Plains dust storm arrived in the skies over Washington, D.C. At the time, scientist Hugh Bennett was testifying before a congressional committee. He was trying to convince the federal government that farmers on the...

Black Sunday.
April 1, 2003... Palm Sunday of 1935 appeared to be a good day for attending church and going on family outings in the Dust Bowl. Though dust storms assaulted the area almost daily for six weeks, they looked to be gone. The morning of April 14 began bright and...

Baked out and broke: the Okie migration.
April 1, 2003... When farmers in the 1930s could not grow crops, they could not make money to pay the bills and feed their families. If the farmers owned the land, they could sell it, even at a loss, and work at another occupation. If they rented the land,...

The real Jim Rawley. (Quote of the Month).
April 1, 2003... The dedication to John Steinbeck's novel about a Dust Bowl family, The Grapes of Wrath, reads as follows: "To CAROL who willed it. To TOM who lived it." Carol was Steinbeck's wife. Tom was the inspiration for Jim Rawley, the fictional...

Did you know?
April 1, 2003... Despite the seriousness of the Dust Bowl, people did find humor in the situation, as you can see in the following stories. When a pilot had engine trouble during a dust storm, "he put on a parachute and jumped--and it took him 6 hours to...

Route 66: highway to hope.
April 1, 2003... During the 1930s, hundreds of thousands of people left their homes in the Dust Bowl. They migrated to California in search of work. So many people uprooted themselves that for several months in 1936, police officers were stationed at the state...

The Okie school.
April 1, 2003... In 1935, the federal government began efforts to provide safe, clean living places for the migrant workers who were crowded into dirty shanty-towns in California. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) built Arvin Federal Camp near...

Dust bowl voices.
April 1, 2003... "I can count twenty-three farmers in the west half of this county that have had to leave the farms to give three men more land." --Dorothea Lange, photographer, and Paul S. Taylor, economist, American Exodus "November 9, 1929.... The...

Turning dust into art.
April 1, 2003... Toward the end of the 1930s, Americans were introduced to the reality of the Dust Bowl through pieces of work by photographers and writers of fiction and music. By then, some of America's finest artists had produced works that seemed literally...

Keeping down the dust.
April 1, 2003... Drought, is a "natural" hazard. It affects more people in North America than any other catastrophe in nature, including earthquakes, floods, and hurricanes. In 2002, parts of the United States experienced drought due to lack of rain worse than...

Brain ticklers.
April 1, 2003... Give your brain a little tickle to see how well you read and understood this issue on the Dust Bowl. If you believe the answer to be false, give yourself the ultimate test and see whether you can explain why it is false. Answers on page 43. ...

A final word.
April 1, 2003... The Dust Bowl was the result of a series of events--ecological, political, and economic; local and international--that forever changed the lives of thousands of Americans. If you know that your grandparents or elderly neighbors lived during the...

Haiku. (Letters).
April 1, 2003... Haiku Nights of dreams end with nature's glorious morning, as trees stretch their limbs. Kavita Jain-Cocks Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

Wind. (Letters).
April 1, 2003... Wind I push you with my chilly hand as you run around outside. Without wings, without I fly through the sky. I howl during evening thunderstorms, and I whisper in the day. I destroy, and I create, ...

My Favorite Things. (Letters).
April 1, 2003... My Favorite Things Sitting with my family by a warm fire. Riding my pony at sundown. Taking a long, hot bath. Reading a good book. Swimming at night. Playing games with my big sister. Eating...

Song of the Loon.
April 1, 2003... Song of the Loon The song of the Loon-- so graceful, so pretty, so peaceful, so happy, so loving, so caring-- echoes through the hills. The song of the loon-- a long, depressed sob, an extended,...

The Dictionary.
April 1, 2003... The Dictionary Look in the dictionary-- you'll find all kinds of things. Words like "ball" and "canoe" and "canary"-- you'll see all the meanings! Look while your family is sleeping. Then, when they wake...

Swan.
April 1, 2003... Swan Soft, white, large, swimming, gliding, flying, beautiful grace in the water. Courtney Hitt Big Sandy, Texas

Dear Cobblestonians.
April 1, 2003... In the January 2004 issue, COBBLESTONE revisits the Civil War, this time with a look at the role of the Union and Confederate navies. Neither side had a particularly strong naval department, but there were some important battles that turned the...

Mustang.
April 1, 2003... Mustang Mustang! Oh, Mustang, so wild and free as you run over the prairies as fast as can be. You raise your family to be brave. No one can ever make you their slave. You never give up and would rather run till ...

Books to read. (Digging Deeper).
April 1, 2003... Fiction The Journal of C.J. Jackson: A Dust Bowl Migrant, Oklahoma to California, 1935 by William Durbin (New York: Scholastic Inc., 2002), part of the My Name Is America series, is the diary of a thirteen-year-old boy who chronicles the...

More media. (Digging Deeper).
April 1, 2003... Surviving the Dust Bowl, part of the PBS American Experience series, portrays the people who stayed put and clung to their homes and ways of life through the almost decade-long drought. For more information, check out the PBS Web site (see...

On the Web. (Digging Deeper).
April 1, 2003... www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/dustbowl/ describes the PBS video Surviving the Dust Bowl (see above). From here, you also can connect to a teacher's guide, a map of states affected by the drought and dust storms, and a time line. For a Library of...

Places to visit. (Digging Deeper).
April 1, 2003... Steinbeck Center Foundation, Salinas, California. This museum is home to manuscripts, letters, photos, and many other objects related to the life and art of John Steinbeck. National Museum of American History, Washington, D.C. For its fall...

From the Archives.
April 1, 2003... Although it is not often that COBBLESTONE ventures into the twentieth century, we have published several issues that supply insight into the turn of the century. We recommend Prohibition (COB9310) and The Great Depression (COB8403). You also...

Cartoon connection.
April 1, 2003... To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth. --John Steinbeck The Grapes of Wrath