The Civilian Conservation Corps

Neil M. Maher examines the history of one of Franklin D. Roosevelt's boldest and most successful experiments, the Civilian Conservation Corps, describing it as a turning point both in national politics and in the emergence of modern environmentalism.--Résumé de l'éditeur.

The Civilian Conservation Corps was established on March 31, 1933 by President Franklin Roosevelt as part of his efforts to pull the country out of the Great Depression. The program lasted until July 2 1942, successfully creating work for a half-million unemployed young men across the nation. They were housed, fed, clothed, and taught trade skills while working in forests, parks, and range lands. Paid one dollar a day, each man was required to send home $25 a month; the program provided work for young men as well as support to thousands of families. South Dakota was home to more than 50 camps over the nine-year time span with projects in areas ranging from constructing bridges and buildings in state parks, thinning trees in national forests to mining rock, crushing it into gravel, and graveling roads. Although this volume is set in South Dakota, the photos are representative of camps and men from all over the nation who served in the CCCs.

*Includes pictures *Includes accounts written by CCC workers *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents "I propose to create [the CCC] to be used in complex work, not interfering with abnormal employment, and confining itself to forestry, the prevention of soil erosion, flood control and similar projects. I call your attention to the fact that this type of work is of definite, practical value, not only through the prevention of great present financial loss, but also as a means of creating future national wealth." - President Franklin D. Roosevelt In 1932, America faced an economic crisis even more severe than the one it has been experiencing recently. The issue then, as now, was how to address it. When President Franklin Roosevelt came into office, he faced more economic problems than any president since has ever faced, but he came equipped with unique and creative solutions to them. One of his most important programs was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which recruited and employed more than two million young men in the prime of life and put them to work in the much threatened forests and farms around the nation. He gave these young men jobs, something they could be proud of doing, and offered them a level of education many had been denied. The CCC also taught them discipline and teamwork, skills that easily translated into workplace success. In less than eight years, the CCC planted billions of trees, built thousands of cabins and other rustic buildings, cleared thousands of acres of land, and created thousands of miles of walking and hiking trails. In the process, it shaped the lives of millions of young men, many of whom were dangerously close to embracing a life of crime. It gave them work to do and taught them skills that could later be used in the workplace, but it also taught them to appreciate and care for the land they worked and lived on, inspiring an unprecedented level of admiration for the environment. A generation later, these men would tell their children stories of their work on the land, inspiring an explosion of interest in the environment in the 1960s, a passion that continues to this day. It's often wondered whether such a program would work today, but rather than see the CCC as an inspiration for something that could be done today, it is easier and probably more accurate to view it as an old-fashioned idea that worked in a world very different from the one we live in today. The Civilian Conservation Corps: The History of the New Deal's Famous Jobs Program during the Great Depression chronicles the New Deal program that employed millions and revitalized the nation's infrastructure at the height of the Great Depression. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the CCC like never before, in no time at all.

CCC veterans tell compelling stories of their experiences planting trees, fighting fires, building state parks, and reclaiming pastureland in this collective history of the CCC in Minnesota.

How the Civilian Conservation Corps constructed, rejuvenated, and protected American forests and parks at the height of the Great Depression. Propelled by the unprecedented poverty of the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established an array of massive public works programs designed to provide direct relief to America’s poor and unemployed. The New Deal’s most tangible legacy may be the Civilian Conservation Corps’s network of parks, national forests, scenic roadways, and picnic shelters that still mark the country’s landscape. CCC enrollees, most of them unmarried young men, lived in camps run by the Army and worked hard for wages (most of which they had to send home to their families) to preserve America’s natural treasures. In The New Deal’s Forest Army, Benjamin F. Alexander chronicles how the corps came about, the process applicants went through to get in, and what jobs they actually did. He also explains how the camps and the work sites were run, how enrollees spent their leisure time, and how World War II brought the CCC to its end. Connecting the story of the CCC with the Roosevelt administration’s larger initiatives, Alexander describes how FDR’s policies constituted a mixed blessing for African Americans who, even while singled out for harsh treatment, benefited enough from the New Deal to become an increasingly strong part of the electorate behind the Democratic Party. The CCC was the only large-scale employment program whose existence FDR foreshadowed in speeches during the 1932 campaign—and the dearest to his heart throughout the decade that it lasted. Alexander reveals how the work itself left a lasting imprint on the country’s terrain as the enrollees planted trees, fought forest fires, landscaped public parks, restored historic battlegrounds, and constructed dams and terraces to prevent floods. A uniquely detailed exploration of life in the CCC, The New Deal’s Forest Army compellingly demonstrates how one New Deal program changed America and gave birth to both contemporary forestry and the modern environmental movement.

In an inspiring middle grade nonfiction work, P. O’Connell Pearson tells the story of the Civilian Conservation Corps—one of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal projects that helped save a generation of Americans. When Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in March 1933, the United States was on the brink of economic collapse and environmental disaster. Thirty-four days later, the first of over three million impoverished young men were building parks and reclaiming the nation’s forests and farmlands. The Civilian Conservation Corps—FDR’s favorite program and “miracle of inter-agency cooperation”—resulted in the building and/or improvement of hundreds of state and national parks, the restoration of nearly 120 million acre of land, and the planting of some three billion trees—more than half of all the trees ever planted in the United States. Fighting for the Forest tells the story of the Civilian Conservation Corp through a close look at Shenandoah National Park in Virginia (the CCC’s first project) and through the personal stories and work of young men around the nation who came of age and changed their country for the better working in Roosevelt’s Tree Army.