Dust Covered Privilege: White Women’s Experiences of the Dust Bowl

Abstract

In this article, I utilize a white privilege framework to analyze white women’s experiences of the Dust Bowl. In particular, I focus on the question: What do white women’s experiences of the Dust Bowl tell us about privilege and inequality? Using oral histories housed in the University of Oklahoma’s archive, “Dust, Drought, and Dreams Gone Dry: Oklahoma Women in the Dust Bowl Oral History Project,” I engage in a qualitative analysis of the women’s experiences that expand our understanding of the dominant narratives of this era. By focusing on the anomalous nature of the sample, I examine the multifaceted way in which race, gender, and class shape these women’s experiences of this era. Ultimately, these women’s narratives reveal the complex system of privilege and oppression that these white women experienced in a time of economic and environmental crisis.