The causes of The Great Dust Bowl can be traced all the way back to the 1890’s. This was the decade the first gasoline-powered tractor was invented, resulting in accelerated plowing, planting, and harvesting for farmers. In The Worst Hard Time, a novel written by Timothy Egan, he writes about Fred Folkers, a wheat farmer from this time: “What changed everything for him, and other dryland farmers, was the tractor… A tractor did the work of ten horses. With his new combine, Folders could cut and thresh the grain in one swoop, using just a fraction of the labor…” ( Doc. C1). Inventions such as the tractor and the combine changed everything for Folkers, and numerous other farmers. One of these farmers was Simon Fishman,