Essays on Great Plains

It is one of the ironies of history that the “old west” was actually the last area of the north American continent to be settled. By 1860, for example, San Francisco, California was a booming city of 56,802 persons making it the 15th largest city in the nation (San Francisco Population). Kansas City, meanwhile, had a population of 4,418 (U.S. Census Bureau). Denver, Colorado was already the “Queen City of the Plains” with a population of 4,749 (Population of Denver, CO). These three communities are important since Denver and Kansas City represent the western and eastern ...

INTRODUCTION

Many countries rely on agricultural crops for the food security of their citizens and the stability of their economy. Cultivating crops allowed humans to meet their increasing demands for crops and continue to prosper. Without agricultural products, civilizations would have been different or would have failed to exist. People would have relied on gathering crops and end up exhausting every available resource there is. Nevertheless, as societies and their demands for agricultural crops advance, more strain are put into the environment. People have cultivated crops continuously and some have done it without much regards to the environment. There have ...

Dust Bowl is an environmental catastrophe that occurred in the Southern Great Plains of U.S.A. The top soil in the great plains, literally flew away in the wind created a dust cloud in the region. The wind erosion was so intense that it almost smothered human, animal and plant life in the process. Following the incident, the land became a barren landscape and unsuitable for human inhabitation. Farmers and families were forced to leave the land and settle elsewhere as the dust made it difficult to breath. Many agricultural experts blame over cultivation and draining of soil resources as ...

Introduction

Much of the human suffering and economic disadvantages that occurred during the Great Depression (1929-1933) were a result of the boom mentality and unregulated business practices of the 1920s. People with a corrupt kind of business acumen exploited the weakest segments of society in the poorest regions. Praying on a naïve boom psychology, businessmen led a devastating attack on the Midwest that ultimately was not curbed by politicians or financial institutions until the middle 1930s. New businesses exploited weak government controls and took on many of the same exploitative practices as the Robber Baron businessmen of the 19th ...