Great American Desert
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The term Great American Desert was used in the 19th century to describe the part of North America east of the Rocky Mountains to approximately the 100th meridian. It can be traced to Stephen H. Long's
"Great American Desert," mapped by Stephen H. Long in 1820
Historic photo of the High Plains in Haskell County, Kansas, showing a treeless semi-arid grassland and a buffalo wallow or circular depression in the level surface. (Photo by W.D. Johnson, 1897)
Dust Bowl
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The Dust Bowl was 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
Great American Desert
…of Roughing It (1872), Mark Twain refers to the Great American Desert, but he applies the term to the Forty Mile Desert of Nevada's Lahontan Valley. Dust Bowl High Plains (United States…
Arthur Rothstein's Farmer and Sons Walking in the Face of a Dust Storm, a Resettlement Administration photograph taken in Cimarron County, Oklahoma, in April 1936
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