1. What was XIT? Why did it control everything in the region?
2. Describe the White family’s saga into Dalhart, Texas. What unfortunate sign led Bam to stay?
3. How did No Man’s Land, or the Oklahoma panhandle end up with five flags flying over it during its history?
4. What were the two natural disasters that nesters feared the most?
5. What event raised the farmers’ standard of living? Why?
6. Why did things in Boise City, OK seem to be going too well (especially with what we know is coming around the corner in 1929 and 1930)?
7. In ch 3, how did the James family lose money while everyone else around them in Dalhart made money in wheat or oil?
8. Why do you think the author keeps using the premonition of too much earth dug up for farming during the early 20th Century in ch 2 & 3?
9. What did the Russlanddeutschen endure in Russia and America? How is their story typical of the immigrants who we studied?
10. In ch 5, what was the ironic thing about the over production of wheat on the High Plains and the malnutrition elsewhere in the country? What were some of the solutions, simple to radical, that the farmers thought of? Why did the farmers stay?
11. What happened to the First National Bank in Dalhart? Why were men riding the rails at this time?
12. Why were Jews blamed for the Depression? Why were the Herzsteins left alone?
13. In ch 7, what past experience shaped President Hoover in his refusal to give aid to the farmers?
14. What was the purpose of low bidding at a foreclosure auction? How did the bank owner try to counter this?
15. What was Governor Alfalfa Bill’s attitude towards minorities? How was he going to solve the drought problem?
16. In 1931, what did the survey done by the university of Oklahoma’s Agricultural dept find were the causes of the problems with the land?
17. How did the exploits of Black Jack Ketchum get reinterpreted due to current circumstances with the banks and the government in 1933?
18. How did the land become malevolent?
19. Why is Lujan’s story filled with rage at the sodbusters?
20. What did Hugh Bennett warn the nation of?
21. How did Hoover and FDR differ in their approach to helping the farmers?
22. Why was weather forecasting still an unpredictable and inaccurate job?
23. How did the govt. get the men off the Panhandle to work?
24. What did the government men come out to the Dust bowl to do to the animals?
25. What was so significant about the dust storm in early May 1934?
26. Why did it seem like the year 1934 was the worst for the people of No Man’s Land?
27. What were the symptoms of dust pneumonia?
28. Do you think McCarty, the editor of the Texan, has gone insane, is just trying to be resilient for his readers, or something else? Why?
29. Why was the storm of Black Sunday worse than any other storm?

30. What two approaches does the federal government take towards helping the people of the Dust Bowl?
31. Why did Don Hartwell keep a journal? What were your impressions of his entries?
32. What did the Future of the Great Plains Report short version say was the fault of the Dust Bowl?
33. Why were the grasshoppers a huge discouragement on the summer of ’37?