Research Blog, Entry #1
I became what I call “fully acquainted” (or at least much more so than previously) with the Great Depression and Dust Bowl while in ninth grade. I knew of the Depression and Dust Bowl beforehand; as an avid reader I fell in love with historical fiction novels that covered 1930s America.
My love for the era reached a new level in ninth grade. Each student in my English class picked a topic about the 1920s (we were studying F. Scott Fitzgerald at the time), and the topic ideas included World War I and the Great Depression and Dust Bowl. I chose the latter and completly immersed myself in reserach. Texts, journals and diaries, photographs, and newspapers pretty much took over my family’s dining room (my favorite place to work at home). I just couldn’t get enough information, or look at enough photographs, and I realized that I could easily spend a lot of time (meaning a much longerspan than a week or two) studying the Great Depression and Dust Bowl.
Over the past couple of years I have become increasingly interested in women’s history. I loved exploring the changes that occurred in American women’s roles, as well as in conceptions of family and femininity, from the Antebellum period through the present but found that the female Dust Bowl experience was largely ignored. The hardships caused by the Dust Bowl, ranging from starvation for forced migration, had to have a unique impact on women, and I decided to explore that impact.
I plan to examine women’s lives as affected by the Dust Bowl, looking at both those directly and indirectly affected by the droughts and dust storms. I also hope to analyze the responses of different groups of women to the conditions brought forth by the Dust Bowl. How did changes faced by Great Plains women regarding productive and reproductive labor, migration and its impact on motherhood, and alterations in sanitation and other aspects of the home affect women’s lives? In what ways were women in the East affected by the droughts and dust storms? And how did women in the West, particularly in California, respond to the challenges presented to them by the Dust Bowl?
This fits into a larger historical context because it addresses a largely missing aspect of women’s history. It also connects women’s history to environmental history. I love filling in gaps, and my thesis work will allow me to do just that.
I knew as an incoming freshman that I would write a history honors thesis; I enjoy researching and writing too much to not write a thesis. And I am too passionate about 1930s America to not devote a significant amount of time and effort into learning more about it and sharing the knowledge I gain with others.