<P> The Dust Bowl forced tens of thousands of poverty - stricken families to abandon their farms , unable to pay mortgages or grow crops , and losses reached US $ 25 million per day by 1936 ( equivalent to US $440,000,000 in 2017 ) . Many of these families , who were often known as `` Okies '' because so many of them came from Oklahoma , migrated to California and other states to find that the Great Depression had rendered economic conditions there little better than those they had left . </P>
<P> The Dust Bowl forced tens of thousands of poverty - stricken families to abandon their farms , unable to pay mortgages or grow crops , and losses reached US $ 25 million per day by 1936 ( equivalent to US $440,000,000 in 2017 ) . Many of these families , who were often known as `` Okies '' because so many of them came from Oklahoma , migrated to California and other states to find that the Great Depression had rendered economic conditions there little better than those they had left . </P>
where did the okies go during the dust bowl
where did the okies go during the dust bowl
California and other states
California and other states