Credit Photo courtesy kansasmemory.org, Kansas Historical Society
A dust cloud rises over an unspecified town on the southern Plains.
Credit Photo courtesy kansasmemory.org, Kansas Historical Society
A corn field withered and broken by drought and wind in Shawnee County, Kan., 1936.
Credit Photo courtesy kansasmemory.org, Kansas Historical Society
Residents of Liberal, Kansas pose in their gas masks in front of a Red Cross building in 1935. The masks were worn to protect their lungs from fine particles of blowing dust.
The Dust Bowl of the 1930s left an indelible mark on the Midwest and on history. It is the drought against which all others are measured. And it was a man-made disaster that could still offer lessons today.
