The Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933-1942: A New Deal Case Study

Abstract

The Creation of the CCC 5 countless benefits both to the youth and to the land.'Many people simply interpreted the CCC as being the application of James's suggestion to depression America.Roosevelt, however, could not remember having read the essay and certainly denied ever consciously connecting it with the Corps."But," he admitted, "it is a very interesting thought."Interesting it may have been, but there were certainly other influences which must be considered.In the first place, relief work in the forests had begun on a limited scale in parts of the United States even before Roosevelt was elected.In both California and Washington, for example, the Forest Service co-operated with state and county officials in running subsistence camps for the unemployed in forest areas.The local authorities clothed and fed the men, while the Forest Service sheltered them and directed the work.Similar schemes were being operated or (at least planned in other parts of the country, and Roosevelt was aware of most of them.They undoubtedly influenced his think-'ing on the CCC to some degree.'Then too, there were the overseas examples to follow.By 1932 the governments of Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, and above 'all, Germany, had established conservation camps for the unemployed.The German Labor Service was to become by far the ~ best known of these and the one most easily comparable to the CCC.Under Adolf Hitler, the Labor Service, as shall be discussed in a later chapter, had a distinctive militaristic and authoritarian flavor.It developed into a vehicle for Nazi propaganda,