Click here to view slideshowYou'll recognize the stare. You've likely seen it in Dorothea Lange's iconic photo of a migrant mother taken in 1936. And as you look through other Dust Bowl pictures above, you will see that stare again and again.It's at once vacant and intent, stoic and poignant, broken and resolved. There's defeat, but hope too. After all, the Dust Bowl was one of the worst ecological disasters in American history, and it forced millions to leave their homes. From the tragedy, some people also forged fresh starts.But that came later. First, starting in the early 1930s, the Dust Bowl was just dust. Dust which swirled through the air, blocking out the sun, dust which choked crops and buried farms, dust which stung the eyes, the nose, the mouth. For roughly a decade, the Dust Bowl turned much of the American heartland into a virtual wasteland, prone to "black blizzard" dust storms. So how did the Dust Bowl even begin? How did it impact the United States? And where did millions of migrants fleeing the dust go? Below, read on to learn about the history of the Dust Bowl. And above, look through a gallery of Dust Bowl pictures which captures the despair and devastation of the era.How The Dust Bowl Began In The 1930sThe seeds of the Dust Bowl were sown literally far before the disaster began in the 1930s. As the Library of Congress explains, thousands of settlers migrated to the region after the passage of the Homestead Act in 1862. Farmers plowed the widespread prairie grasses and, as the demand for wheat grew, they increasingly used the land for wheat cultivation. This, alongside the overgrazing of cattle, removed the area's native prairie grass. These grasses had played an essential role, both by absorbing moisture and by holding the soil in place during periods of intense wind storms. Then, in 1931, droughts made things even worse as crops failed and left behind dry, sandy soil. This soil was easily picked up by high winds, creating the region's first "black blizzard" dust storms. Library of CongressThe aftermath of a dust storm in Oklahoma, circa 1936.In 1932, there were 14 such storms. By the next year, there were 38. The Dust Bowl had begun. Its name came from journalist Robert Geiger, who wrote in 1935, "Three little words achingly familiar on a Western farmer's tongue, rule life in the dust bowl of the continent - if it rains."Black Blizzards, Destroyed Farmland, And Mass Migration Out Of The HeartlandOver the next decade, conditions grew even worse. The United States suffered under a widespread drought, which ultimately encompassed 27 states (and more than 75 percent of the country) by 1934. That year, one powerful dust storm even spread to the East Coast, coating both the U.S. Capitol and the Statue of Liberty with loose soil.Carson County Square House MuseumSome dust storms were so powerful that the even reached the East Coast, as seen here when dust darkened the sky over the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. But one of the worst storm of the Dust Bowl hit on April 14, 1935, a date remembered as "Black Sunday." According to the National Weather Service, it began in eastern Oklahoma around 4 p.m., and quickly spread across the state and into Texas. High winds, reaching 60 miles per hour, created a monstrous dark tsunami that blotted out the sun. "The impact is like a shovelful of fine sand flung against the face," writer Avis D. Carlson explained in a New Republic article. "People caught in their own yards grope for the doorstep. Cars come to a standstill, for no light in the world can penetrate that swirling murk... The nightmare is deepest during the storms. But on the occasional bright day and the usual gray day we cannot shake from it. We live with the dust, eat it, sleep with it, watch it strip us of possessions and the hope of possessions."Meanwhile, animals got sick and died, and people suffered what they called "dust pneumonia." Indeed, conditions in the central United States had grown so dire that many people decided to leave. As John Steinbeck described in his 1939 book Grapes of Wrath, migrants known as "Okies" packed up their possessions and left the American heartland. Some 2.5 million people migrated out of the Dust Bowl states (Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma) in search of a better life. Library of CongressA group of Dust Bowl migrants, mostly children, making their way from Arkansas to California. 1938.They didn't always find it. Okies often faced discrimination in places like California and Arizona, or found themselves working menial jobs. But fortunately, by the end of the decade, the Dust Bowl had begun to subside. The End Of The Dust BowlIn the 1930s, the U.S. government enacted several measurements to alleviate the suffering caused by the Dust Bowl. In 1935, the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act provided $525 million for drought relief, and the Works Progress Administration ultimately employed 8.5 million people. Congress also declared soil erosion "a national menace," and passed the Soil Erosion Service and the Prairie States Forestry Project that year.This program paid workmen to plant trees, and subsided farmers who practiced farming techniques that protected soil, including crop rotation and contour plowing. Meanwhile, much needed rains in 1939 helped return environmental conditions to normal to the relief of millions of farmers. U.S. Department of AgricultureA farmer practicing contour plowing, a technique meant to prevent soil erosion. Circa 1930s."It was a very emotional time, when you'd get rain, because it meant so much to you. You didn't have false hope then," Floyd Coen of Kansas said, per WOUB. "When the rain came, it meant life itself. It meant a future."In 1941, the United States also joined World War II, which boosted the national economy. Economic conditions improved alongside ecological ones, and things began to return to normal. After a terrible decade, the Dust Bowl had ended. Today, we're left with the photographs of Dorothea Lange and a few others photographers, whose Dust Bowl pictures provide an up-close look at this devastating American tragedy. In the gallery above, see some of the people who lived through the environmental disaster, as well as the ghostly landscapes ravaged by monster dust storms. After viewing these haunting pictures of the Dust Bowl, take a look at these photos of America during the Great Depression. Then, peruse these colorized photos of World War II.The post 47 Dust Bowl Pictures That Illustrate The Devastation Of This Unprecedented Ecological Disaster appeared first on All That's Interesting.