Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avergan.

This day, May 11th, 1934, a massive storm sweeps across the Great Plains region of the United States,

and across the entire country really, picking up millions of tons of topsoil from the parked farmlands and spreading it.

Well everywhere. The plains of course were decimated. Farmers in Nebraska and Oklahoma and

Kansas and other states lost everything. The winds moved west to east,

reaching the East Coast. Dust covered the US capital and the Statue of Liberty.

Ships some 300 miles offshore of the East Coast in the Atlantic reported dust collecting on their decks.

That winter of 1934, red snow fell in New England.

So here to discuss the dust storms of the mid 30s, the dust bowl as it is known are as always

Nicoleheimer of Columbia and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley. Hello there.

Hello Jody. Hey there.

So this wind is sweeping west to east, and as I said, reaching all the way to the east coast.

Some of these numbers, and just the sort of sheer size of it Kelly are just like a

little hard to get your head around. Oh my gosh it's astounding it's astounding. So we

should say that when you know you think about the turn of the 19th century and people are moving west and

they are settling all of the Great Plains area and they're bringing with them you

know this idea of the plow

and that we're going to use this new heartland

to cultivate food and wheat and additional crops.

And the problem with that is that they have overdeveloped much of this Great Plains area and so the grasslands which traditionally kept the soil damp or wet enough so that you didn't have these massive

dust bowls all of that was sort of eroded and so because of that and on top of that you get a drought so when there's no

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