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.
