The Dust Bowl and "Okies".

http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/water_06.html

I found this website and I thought it provided some interesting background information on the dust bowl, farming, and the movement West in the 1930s.  It also covers history following the dust bowl which gives us some sort of basis for imagining what might have happened to families who stayed or to the homes that were left.