Farming the Dust Bowl (P) - by Lawrence Svobida (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

After northern Wisconsin was cleared by commercial loggers early in the twentieth century, enthusiastic promoters and optimistic settlers envisioned transforming this "cutover" into a land of yeoman farmers. Here thousands of families mostly immigrants or second-generation Americans sought to recreate old worlds and build new farms on land that would come to be considered agriculturally worthless. In the end, they succumbed not to drought or soil depletion but to social and political pressures from those who looked askance at their way of life.

From the Back Cover

This is the story of Lawrence Svobida, a Kansas wheat farmer who fought searing drought, wind, erosion, and economic hard times in the Dust Bowl. It is a vivid account by a farmer who pitted his physical strength, mental faculties, and financial resources against the environment as nature wreaked havoc across the southern Great Plains. Svobida's description of Dust Bowl agriculture is important not only because it accurately describes farming in that region but also because it is one of the few first-hand accounts that remain of the frightening and still haunting dust-laden decade of the 1930's.

Review Quotes

"Although factual and calm in style, this book is as moving as John Steinbeck's novels."--The New Republic

"Easily one of the most important books that has dealt with the dust bowl and its problems. Nowhere else can be found such penetrating and dispassionate comments, free from political bias, on the actual workings of governmental agencies in the attempt to deal with cumulative disaster to one-sixth of our national area. And what is said has bearing on problems far beyond the limits of the Great Plains."--The Saturday Review of Literature

"The author has a story to tell that is of first importance to all Americans. . . . [A story of the] drought and high winds [that] brought permanent ruin and tragedy . . . to a region as large as France, Germany, and most of the British Isles."--American Library Association Booklist

"One of the best books ever to appear about Dust Bowl days . . .not only because it is well written, but also because its author was one of those plains farmers who fought the losing fight. . . . A highly recommended 'inside' account."--Robert Athearn, author of The Coloradans and High Country Empire