Civilian Conservation Corps

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), established in 1933 by the U.S. Congress as a measure of the New Deal program. The CCC provided work and vocational training for unemployed single young men through conserving and developing the country's natural resources. At its peak in 1935, the organization had more than 500,000 members in over 2,600 camps. These were usually operated by the War Dept., but the men were not subject to military control. In 1939 the CCC was made part of the Federal Security Agency. Beginning in 1940, greater emphasis was placed on projects aiding national defense. Against President Franklin D. Roosevelt's request, Congress abolished the CCC in 1942.

Civilian Conservation Corps. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was created in March 1933, during the first “hundred days” of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal, the first of a number of agencies designed to combat massive unemployment among youth. It bore Roosevelt's personal stamp, reflecting his concern about the destruction of America's natural resources, a theme he had stressed during the 1932 campaign.

Given the urgency of the crisis, the Roosevelt administration decided to operate the CCC through existing federal departments. The Department of Labor selected young men between eighteen and twenty‐five years of age from public‐relief rolls. The War Department transported them to camps of two hundred men each and administered these, while the Departments of Agriculture and the Interior supervised the specific conservation tasks. Director Robert Fechner and a small central staff coordinated the program. Enrollees earned thirty dollars a month, twenty‐five dollars of which was sent home to their families. The initial enrollment period was six months, renewable for up to two years. Black youths were enrolled according to population ratio, almost always in segregated camps.

The CCC proved enormously popular and effective, lasting until June 1942. Though the nearly three million enrollees performed a wide variety of conservation tasks, the CCC was best known for its reforestation work. Of all the trees planted on public lands between 1776 and 1942, 75 percent were planted by the corps.
See also Forests and Forestry; New Deal Era, The.

Bibliography

John A. Salmond , The Civilian Conservation Corps 1933–1942: A New Deal Case Study, 1967.

John A. Salmond