Sanora Babb was an American novelist, poet, and literary editor.
Babb with her husband James Wong Howe
The Dust Bowl was the result of a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s. The phenomenon was caused by a combination of natural factors and human-made factors: a failure to apply dryland farming methods to prevent wind erosion, most notably the destruction of the natural topsoil by settlers in the region. The drought came in three waves: 1934, 1936, and 1939–1940, but some regions of the High Plains experienced drought conditions for as long as eight years.
A farmer and his two sons during a dust storm in Cimarron County, Oklahoma, April 1936. Iconic photo entitled "Dust Bowl Cimarron County, Oklahoma" taken by Arthur Rothstein.
A dust storm approaches Stratford, Texas, in 1935.
A dust storm; Spearman, Texas, April 14, 1935
Heavy black clouds of dust rising over the Texas Panhandle, Texas, c. 1936