Kansas as a Work in Progress during the Great Depression

Hard Times

The decade of the 1930s Depression was especially hard on Kansas and the neighboring Great Plains states because the economic crisis coincided with drought and dust storms that lasted for much of the decade, particularly in the western part of the state.  The late Clifford R. Hope, Sr., a long-time Kansas Congressman, remarked that because of these natural disasters “Kansas and the neighboring Great Plains states got a double dose of misery and calamity”[1] that affected every part of the country during this tumultuous decade.

The worst year in Kansas for dust storms, known as “black blizzards,” was 1935.  An article from the April 10th edition of the Garden City Daily Telegram recounts in vivid detail one of the worst dust storms to roll in that year:

The “Black Friday night” duster [on March 15] . . . was equalled if not surpassed by the intensity of the top soil blizzard which swept this region today.  After a brief cessation from yesterday’s blow during the early morning hours, a new storm swept in . . . and  grew steadily worse until it was dark as night before noon.  Bright electric signs could hardly be seen across the street.

Traffic was halted, schools closed, numerous meetings and social functions postponed and virtually all business in Garden City and neighboring towns was suspended.  Other than grocery and drug stores most business houses were closed and clerks had returned to their homes.  Only first and second hour classes were held this morning in the public schools, including the junior college.[2]

A few statistics fill out the grim picture.  It should be noted that agriculture was even more central to the state’s economy in the 1930s than it is today.  In addition, farmers were already going through tough times during the 1920s, despite the general prosperity of the rest of the country.  Things went from bad to worse during the thirties and the total value of agricultural production was only 63% of what it had been during the previous decade.  Yields of wheat and corn were generally lower as winds blew off the loose topsoil.  There was a severe decline in farm prices for much of the decade.  The 1930s is also the only decade when the state as a whole lost population.  Many of the problems that Kansans suffered during the Depression were not new, but the boom and bust agricultural cycle that was part of the Great Depression was surely the worst of its kind in the state’s history.

[1] Clifford R. Hope, Sr., “Kansas in the 1930’s,” The Kansas Historical Quarterly, v. 36 (Spring, 1970): 1.
[2] Quoted in Robert W. Richmond, Kansas: A Land of Contrasts, 2nd edition (St. Louis, Mo: Forum Press, 1980), p. 236.

Renewal and Recovery

Public programs for relief and recovery during the 1930s left an indelible legacy on Kansas agriculture and political life.   Many of the images in this exhibit focus on visible improvements in agriculture, soil conservation, and public works projects.  Several images reveal the vitality of political life during the 1930s and the determination of ordinary people just to get on with the business of living and coping.

The New Deal provided the impetus for better organization and more cooperation to improve soil conservation.  The techniques to prevent topsoil blowing away were already known in the form of roughening up the topsoil or getting a cover crop.  The challenge was coming up with a plan that landowners and tenant farmers in Kansas were willing to follow since the problem could be solved only with coordinated, continuous and broad-based effort.  The dire need prompted many to push for compulsory measures, and the legislature passed a bill in 1935 that required landowners to take care of their land.  If they failed to do so, the county would charge the costs back as additional taxes.  Even though the bill was declared unconstitutional, its re-passage in amended form two years later marked a turning point in the willingness of owners and tenants to work with state and government agencies for the common good. 

Farmers and other private citizens frequently railed about the extent of governmental intrusion into their lives.  They resisted legislation that regulated crops and livestock such as the Agricultural Adjustment Act, but the fact of the matter was that allotment checks and other New Deal subsidies enabled many people to hold onto their farms and survive the worst of the Depression.  People both needed and wanted the help, at the same time that they resented their dependence on public funds.

The 1930s was one of the few decades in the twentieth century that Kansas enjoyed the give and take of active and lively contests between the two political parties for both state and national offices. The presence of a viable third party candidate for governor in 1930 and 1932, John R. Brinkley, added both spice and controversy to the mix.  Brinkley was a doctor specializing in male sexual rejuvenation using goat glands who advocated populist issues, including free textbooks, tax equalization, community health clinics, and a lake in every county to increase rainfall.  

Democratic candidates won the governorship twice during the decade, Harry Woodring in 1930 and Walter Huxman in 1936.  Another Democrat, George McGill, was a U.S. Senator from 1930-1938. Kansas supported Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 and in his 1936 landslide victory even though his opponent was Kansas governor and popular native son Alf Landon.  This was one of only three times in the twentieth century that Kansas voted for a Democratic candidate for president.  Images in this exhibit also document the lively grass roots political organizing that characterized Kansas political life in this decade.  Examples include two meetings in southeastern Kansas in 1936:  a gathering of wives of Farm Labor Union members in Galena and a political demonstration of the unemployed in Columbus.

Resilience

Despite the severity of the economic crisis and the dust bowl in Kansas during the Great Depression, the iconic images of this period are, paradoxically, not those of despair or abject poverty but resilience.  Oral testimonies and other written accounts, including the records from the WPA Writers’ Project in Kansas, confirm the accuracy of this attitude.  Selections from the Kansas Writers’ Project in Special Collections and University Libraries, Wichita State University Libraries, are included below.

Most noteworthy were people’s willingness to pull together and their reluctance to leave Kansas.  The following three comments by Kansans who lived through this period get to the heart of the matter with an understated eloquence that evokes the quiet strength of those who felt they had no choice but to persevere. 

A homemaker in western Kansas reflects on the rhythms of social life in the mid-1930s that brought people together:

Strange as it may seem we had fun.  I can remember the days when the wind and dirt would blow all day until along about sunset when the wind would go down and the air would clear.  One of the neighbors would drive into the yard . . . and say “come over for supper.”  We would hurriedly fix a dish of something to take and the whole family would go; after supper we would play cards and have a really good time.  We also had party dances in our homes; there would be two or three men available who played a violin and a guitar; we would move enough furniture out of the front room so we would have enough room to dance. . . . Most of us managed to buy a radio, which was something new, and spent many a night listening to the programs and music.[3]

To one resident of western Kansas, what mattered most were the bonds created by shared hardships that mattered more than who people were or how much or little they had:

All were equal with no money.  In sickness or problem times all helped – a people-to-people relationship, what the government says we need to do now to solve some of our social problems.  We had it then. . . . All were accepted, even if you could not pay your bills or if you were a sly businessman, you all belonged.[4]

 In a 1941 article explaining why most people in western Kansas chose to stay, local writer Ada Buell Norris reflected:

Why do we stay?  In part because we hope for the coming of moisture, which would change conditions so that we again would have bountiful harvests.  And in great part, because it is home. We have reared our family here and have so many precious memories of the past.
We have our memories.  We have faith in the future, we are here to stay.[5]

The responses of these people, like the images and WPA Writers’ Project excerpts displayed here, reveal the optimism and steely determination that drew people out to Kansas in the first place and instilled in them the resilience and courage to transform adversity into opportunity.

[3] Ibid., p. 239.
[4] Ibid., p. 252.
[5] Ada Buell Norris, “Black Blizzard,” Kansas Magazine (1941, Manhattan, Kansas), p. 103, quoted in  Hope, “Kansas in the 1930’s,” p. 7.

McKenzie Midget Auto.  Wichita, Kansas, circa 1932.  Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum

KANS Radio Broadcast.  Wichita, Kansas, 1938.  Special Collections, WSU

Russell Lee, Dance poster in drugstore window. Syracuse, Kansas, 1939. FSA

Arthur Rothstein, Coal miner.  Cherokee, County, Kansas, 1936.  FSA

Friends posed for group portrait.  Wichita, Kansas, 1938.  Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum

John Vachon, Young farmer.  Jefferson County, Kansas, 1938.  FSA