Traditionally dated from the stock market collapse in October 1929 to the outbreak of WW II in 1939, the Great Depression resulted in wide scale unemployment, homelessness, and combined with the devastation of the Dust Bowl in the US, a massive migration of Central Plains' residents to California. Historians may disagree over the complex economic factors that led to the Great Depression, but it is universally acknowledged to be the most severe and long lasting worldwide economic depression in history. The unlivable conditions sent upwards of 400,000 people West as they desperately sought a new livelihood in the agricultural fields of California. While a significant area of the nation was affected by the drought and dust storms, Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, and the Texas Panhandle were particularly hard hit. Considered the largest natural disaster in United States history, years of drought and unsound agricultural practices led to the blowing away of the top soil in large portions of the Plains states.
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