What was the Dust Bowl? Assessing contemporary popular knowledge

Abstract

This article reports on an assessment of contemporary popular knowledge and perceptions of the American Dust Bowl of the 1930s. In a region prone to recurrent drought and evolving resource issues such as the depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer, it follows that knowledge of the Dust Bowl can contribute to understanding and dealing with contemporary and future challenges to the human–environment dynamic of the region. An age-stratified sample of residents from 93 Great Plains counties provided their understandings of the three Dust Bowl concepts (era, event, and region) via questionnaire. When compared with the academic record on the subject, significant variation between respondent age groups was identified. Successively, older generations of the historic Dust Bowl region maintain higher degrees of knowledge than their younger counterparts, regarding this exceptional chapter of American environmental history. This record of knowledge erosion not only speaks to the necessity of enhancing Dust Bowl educational resources, but can be utilized to underscore the salience of studying and documenting adaptive strategies to drought on the American Great Plains.