Tuesday, April 22, 2008

The Worst Hard Time: A Book Review


Timothy Egan, The Worst Hard Time (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006), 340 pages, Some photographs, a map, and an abridged appendix with notes and source references.


Seeing this book sitting on my desk waiting to be read, a friend warned: “I didn’t want to go outside after reading that book.” Although I didn’t find it quite that intense, there are places in the book where Egan describes the suffocating dust in such detail that I found myself breathing deeply and cherishing each breath. This is history that reads like a novel. I’m glad for who ever it was that reviewed this book in their blog which caused it to rise to the top of my “to read” pile.

After years of bumper wheat crops, in which large sections of the high plains were cultivated, a drought descended upon the region in the 1930s. With no water to spout new growth and all the native grasses having been removed for wheat, the topsoil of the region began to blow away. Huge black storm clouds of dust would descend upon the region that became known as the “Dust Bowl.” Some of these storms were so strong that the dust descended not only on cities on the Eastern Seaboard, but were even witnessed by ships out in the Atlantic. The description of “Black Sunday,” April 14, 1935, with its huge dust clouds filled with static electricity, reads as if out of the horror genre. That one storm carried twice as much dirt as had been dug out of the Panama Canal (8).

Egan discusses the reasons behind the dust bowl. Certainly nature played a role, but these areas had faced drought before without such consequences. Ultimate blame was placed on human intervention. The removal of the buffalo and the wandering tribes of Native Americans set the stage for the area to be converted first into livestock production while its sale helped fund the Texas state capital (26). After the huge cattle ranches failed, the land was divided by land speculators into parcels for wheat and corn. Marketing played a role as the area, which had previously been referred to as the Great American Desert, became known as the Great Plains (22). Great advances in technology allowed farmers to expand production. In the 1930s, it only took a farmer 3 hours to plant and harvest an acre of land, a drastic improve over a century earlier when it took a farmer 58 hours to do the same work. (47) “Machinery was, as Henry Ford proclaimed, “the new Messiah” (75).

Immigrants from Eastern Europe and Russia flooded into the region, taking advantage of the “Homestead Act” which granted 160 acres of land upon which they could raise a family. Egan tells of the German settlers, who’d left Germany centuries before, taking up the free land offer along the Volga River by Catherine the Great. She also promised these Eastern European settlers (opened to all but Jews [64]), many of whom were pacifist, an exemption from the Czar’s draft. That promise was withdrawn in the 1870s, causing whole villages of German/Russians to flee to America (63-65). Ironically, these settlers also brought Russian thistle, also known as Tumbleweed, with them. (63)

In the wet years of the early 20th Century, aided by machinery, this area produced huge wheat crops. In the teens and twenties, wheat was in great demand, especially with Europe engulfed in the Great War and with the turmoil in Russia forcing them to suspend wheat exports. But by the late 20s, with so much acreage in wheat and Russia once again exporting, the price of wheat dropped. Then the depression hit. Huge stockpiles of wheat accumulated along the western railroads. With such surpluses and with the skies drying up, the land was often left barren, exposed to the winds and storms. With so many farmers in the region going five years without having a harvest, it’s amazing that all of the “sod busters” didn’t flee the region. Many did leave, but many also stuck it out.

Under Roosevelt’s Administration, a fundamental shift occurred as the government was looked to for help in solving problems. Roosevelt depended upon the son of a North Carolina cotton farmer (I had to plug my mother state), Hugh Bennett, to help draft a plan to save the area known as the Dust Bowl. Under Bennett’s direction, much of the homesteaded land was repurchased by the government and replanted in grasses imported from Africa with the use of CCC workers. His belief was that it was more cost effective to buy people off marginal farms than to continue to dole out relief (255). Bennett also worked with local farmers, creating soil conservation districts. He insisted that farmers work together for what happens on one farm would impact his neighbors. These soil conversation districts are the last of the grass-root depression-era programs that have survived and continue to operate. (311).

In telling the story of the Dust Bowl, Egan weaves together numerous stories of individuals whose heroism, faith and determinism comes through in the pages of this book. The Worst Hard Time is both a testament to their lives as well as a warning that we, the inhabitants of the earth, are connected to one another and that our actions toward the land have implications for others. He shows the good and the bad: the willingness to help one another as well as the racial tensions and Klan activity in the region. Hardship both forces people to come together but also makes them fearful of those who are different. One important point in this book is how the government can bring about positive change and help relieve suffering. Of course, the government can’t make it rain any more that the con-artists who promised rain. Admittedly, some of the ideas from Roosevelt’s Administration, like planting trees in the region, were half-baked. But people were helped and much but not all of the land has been reclaimed.
For other book reviews by Sage, click here.
For Semicolon's Saturday's list of book reviews in blogs, click here.

20 comments:

  1. Interesting book. I'll have to add that to my long long list.

    As a Constitutionalist and the son of a farmer, I have a hard time with farm subsidies. As a strict Constitutionalist, they should be obsoleted since farm crops should be regulated only by the free market. But I find myself making the case that farms and the food they grow are a vital part of our national defense. Being able to raise the food we eat allows us to withstand a food embargo should one ever be placed on us. So I find myself juggling back and forth on both sides of this fence.

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  3. I wonder what it feels like to recommend a book to you and have you actually read it. :-)

    I'd say this sounds interesting but I'm still attempting The Secret Knowledge of Water. Any books in this genre have sort of lost their appeal.

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  4. Ed, I agree that there is a benefit from subsides in that they do create surpluses, but you have to be careful to maintain enough of a surplus to make sure there isn't famine, but not so much that it destroys the market. Part of the problem with the pre-dust bowl area is that people didn't have a longterm vision for what was happening and their impact on others. A truly "capitalist/free enterprise" system would not only allow the market to do its job, but would also "punish" those farmers whose barren land blew onto their neighbors land and destroyed their crops. But how? And when no one owns anything of value anyway, it's impossible to "charge" the true cost of the damages.

    Murf, what book are you wanting to recommend? Are you still reading The Secret Knowledge of Water? You've been reading it for 2 years and it's no War and Peace. If you haven't gotten into it by now, give it up!

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  5. Sage - since I think you're a bit of a history buff, I'll recommend to you the Journey of Crazy Horse.

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  6. I wouldn't call tis complaining, Sage.

    This sounds like a book, I'd like to read. I recommend "Rising Tide, the great Mississippi flood of 1927 and how it changed America" which is along similar lines.

    I heard on Writers Almanac (I've come to enjoy it) I believe last week was the anniversary of all of that dust kicking off. LOL, the cover of the book reminds me of Taji.

    But how true, all the ingredients of such a storm. It just doesn't start with a breeze.

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  7. Diane, did you listen to it--I noticed I can get it unabridged from audible.

    Applachianist, I've read about Rising Tide and have it saved in my "want" list for Amazon.

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  8. sage - I listened to the unabridged version from audible and recommend it

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  9. I read that one, Sage, and I think I mentioned it to you. It made me grateful that I didn't live in those times!

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  10. Diane, thanks--I'll put it on my audible list

    Kenju, I thought it was you who had reviewed it, but searched your site and couldn't find it. Now that I think of it, maybe you wrote about it in a comment in my blog. Thanks for suggesting it.

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  11. Books that I deem 'better' than The Secret Knowledge of Water keep popping up in front of it. Currently I'm reading To Kill A Mockingbird. Next is Little Women. After that, I may actually open it past the copyright page.

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  12. Sounds like a good read. Yet again, another example of unintended consequences.

    Cheers.

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  13. I like books w/ strong characters, those who push on and make a difference for future generations. I might look into this one when I'm done w/ Mistress and 1000 Splendid Suns.

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  14. Wow, that sounds good enough to read...:)

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  15. This one has been on my night stand forever, but hey, you could read Rising Tide for the SRC!

    My grandmother came back to TN in a covered wagon after her farming dad went broke in Oklahoma. She tells me nothing of the adventure, she doesn't want me to know how poor they were. My great grandfather also spent some time behind bars, and this she doesn't know I know. What a story, if she would just open up...

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  16. I have this book in my library basket, just waiting to be read.

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  17. My great grandmother was Hazel Lucas, and I believe this book does my family justice. I'm glad thier story got out there and was told before my dear Nana died a few years back.

    *Note of interest* my grandfather (the one born in the book) is still claustrophobic from sleeping under all those damp towels as a baby. : )

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  18. My review:
    http://bookblogbydana.blogspot.com/2011/04/worst-hard-time.html

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  19. A friend corresponded with Mildred (Osteen) (now 88 years of age) who is one of the last survivors of the dust bowl. They lived in a dugout. She says some of the things attributed to her family was not true, or happened to someone else. Some was was out of proportion to what really happened. However, most of the things in the book were actual happenings, as told to me by my grandparents, and others who lived in Okla at that time.

    JL

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  20. A totally absorbing and page-turning narrative with a perfect balance of personal histories and social, political and ecological events skillfully interwoven. I couldn't help but see parallels to today's ongoing struggle between financial imperatives and environmental realities. Should be required reading for every nay-sayer of global warming.

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