Meanwhile, in the west, Californian farmers were looking for new cheap labor after the Mexican Repatriation. Many people in the affected areas died of famine and dust pneumonia.ĭust clouds and black blizzards hitting the Dust Bowl area Dust clouds would black out the sun completely, and witnesses described it as ‘midnight without the stars’. Schools distributed oxygen masks for the children to breathe. Thick layers of dust settled in the wooden homes. After a period of severe drought, dust started to rise up from the soil, forming huge clouds in the air: Black Blizzards. The reason for this ecological disaster was mostly man-made: By transforming the grassland area into farmland, the entire eco-system changed. In a couple of years, these storms would turn the American Great Plains into an American Sahara. Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas were the center of the so-called Dust Bowl: a series of dust storms that tormented the land and its farmers. While everybody’s eyes were focused on Wall Street, other areas of the country had to deal with something way more frightening. In 1929, the American stock market crashed, and the Great Depression hit the United States. As the heavy storms grow bigger, John finds himself in a tragedy bigger than he could have ever imagined.Ĭoncept art from the graphic novel The historic events that inspired the story of “Days of Sand” John, a young photographer from New York, is hired to document the lives of poor Oklahoma farmers living through terrible dust storms, in a region called the Dust Bowl. The trip was funded by the travel grant given by the Dutch Literature Fund ( ) and the book will be published by Dargaud and Scratch Books in 2021.įrench release: Jours de Sable (FR), May 2021ĭutch release: Dagen van Zand (NL), May 2021Įnglish release: to be announced The synopsis

In this blog, a selection of photos will accompany a retrospect of our ten days on the road. But mostly, we enjoyed seeing the real locations where the characters of the book would have lived. My partner Bob joined me, as we interviewed experts and visited museums along the way.

I was doing research for my upcoming graphic novel Days Of Sand (Jours de Sable) which takes place in Oklahoma and California in the 1930s. In April and May of 2019, I made a very special trip through the United States.

Days of sand aimee de jongh