Red Dirt from the Historical Perspective

History books often deal with unknown people in far-away places, but Timothy Egan’s “The Worst Hard Time” is near and timely enough that some may have first-hand memories.
The Pulitzer Prize-winner author presents a true story of the dust-bowl disaster of the early 1900’s, the time of the land runs and Sooners that began the new populating of the state. Generally, at the mention of “dust bowl,” Steinbeck and Tom Joad come to mind, but “The Grapes of Wrath” dealt with Oklahomans who left the miserable conditions for new lives in California, while Egan focuses his attention on those who remained behind.
It may read like fiction, but Egan’s recounting of the hardships faced by those poor plainsmen comes from first hand accounts and source materials that vividly portray the desperation of those facing the towering black clouds of dust.
Given that the disaster was the product of land mismanagement, the story also takes on a man versus nature aspect, a confrontation that demonstrates the power of the planet and the far-reaching results of seemingly harmless tampering. The homesteaders had no idea that the plowing of the grasslands would unleash a storm of blowing dirt and a decade of misery.
“The Worst Hard Time” is also a study of those who remained behind, in many cases people who viewed their homestead as the first real achievement after generations of sharecropping or tenant farming. The diaries kept by those early settlers give heart-wrenching insights into the true extent of the disaster, and the grim determination of those who thought they could ride out the storm.
Certainly, not everyone in Oklahoma is descended from someone who went through the disaster of that era, but understanding that time may give us all a better sense of who we are as a state today.