Civilian Conservation Corps

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), one of U.S. Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s earliest New Deal programs, established to relieve unemployment during the Great Depression by providing national conservation work primarily for young unmarried men. Projects included planting trees, building flood barriers, fighting forest fires, and maintaining forest roads and trails. Throughout its existence (1933–42), the CCC remained one of the most popular of the New Deal’s “alphabet agencies.” At its largest, the program employed 500,000 men, and it provided work for a total of more than 3,000,000 during its nine-year history.

When the Civilian Conservation Corps was established on May 31, 1933, it began an experiment in social welfare programming that was groundbreaking. It was also a revolutionary policy on the part of the U.S. government to save its forest lands and to restore the agricultural topsoil lost in the Dust Bowl. The CCC’s main purpose was to provide gainful employment to the country’s large body of idle young men who had been unable to secure jobs in the Depression years. None of the projects initiated under the CCC was “made” work, however, and this leads to the CCC’s second purpose—to conserve and protect the vast natural resources of the United States. Although U.S. Rep. Oscar DePriest of Illinois had introduced an amendment to the legislation that created the CCC that forbade racial discrimination, segregation was widely practiced within the program. African American and Native American men who participated in the CCC were largely confined to separate camps.

In the first few months of the CCC’s existence, work was mostly hand labor with a pick and shovel. Almost immediately, it became apparent that to replant cut-over forests, control soil erosion, anchor whole watersheds, and fight forest fires and floods in previously inaccessible areas, heavy equipment would be needed. Eventually, 40,000 vehicles, including trucks, tractors, bulldozers, and power shovels, became tools of the corps.

Recruits lived in remote work camps under a semi-military regime. Monthly cash allowances of $30 were supplemented by food, medical care, and other necessities. Workers themselves kept only $5 of their monthly pay; the remaining $25 was sent directly to their families. In most states, the $25 stipend was deducted from the family’s benefit payments if they were on any kind of public relief. The CCC’s low wages initially provoked resistance from labor unions; it was feared that employers might respond by reducing pay among the active workforce. Roosevelt responded to these concerns by appointing Robert Fechner of the International Association of Machinists as CCC director.

The work of CCC workers was significant and long-lasting. They planted more than 2.3 billion trees, constructed 126,000 miles (more than 200,000 km) of roads and trails, and laid 100,000 miles (161,000 km) of telephone lines through national forests. They expended some 6,500,000 person-days fighting forest fires and similar time conducting fire prevention operations on forest lands. They built 6,660,000 small check dams to control soil erosion, 45,000 bridges and buildings, and more than 7,000 large diversion dams. They built hundreds of state parks with cabins, artificial lakes, and water supply systems, and much of the infrastructure in the U.S. National Park System was created using CCC labor. CCC workers built water tanks for cattle on the Western plains and constructed fire lookout towers in forests.

The start of World War II in 1939 saw a portion of the CCC’s efforts redirected to defense projects. Across the country, CCC workers were tasked with building or expanding army, navy, and marine facilities. Operations included land clearance; logging and lumbering; construction of roads, airfields, target ranges, and telephone lines; and mosquito abatement. Increased demand for labor from defense industries set off waves of turnover within the CCC, as young men left the program for higher-paying factory jobs. Those who remained with the CCC were eligible for leadership, industrial safety, and vocational courses that further improved their outside employment prospects.

With the U.S. entry into World War II in December 1941, the needs of the armed forces spelled the end of the program. On June 30, 1942, the CCC ceased operations and began to dispose of its assets. The U.S. Congress had appropriated more than $3 billion to the CCC during its nine years of operation, of which more than $200 million was returned to the Treasury. Of the CCC’s total expenses, some $663 million was sent to dependents of enrollees. A careful inventory of the CCC’s accomplishments showed that in a material way alone, the return received by the federal government and the states was much in excess of the dollar cost of the program’s operation, to say nothing of the benefits received by the workers in education, training, and character building.