Born Then
1930–1939

Life during the Dust Bowl

Be born in a place it hit, a few years before it began, and see what it did to five ordinary lives.

What it meant for ordinary people

Drought and over-ploughed soil turned the southern Plains into a dust storm zone during the Depression. About 2.5 million people left the Plains states over the decade, many to California.

How hard it hits each person in the game (risk of death, of being conscripted, of leaving) comes from our model, estimated from the sources.

Around the same time