Civilian Conservation Corps Resource Page

License and Registration, Please

2011-12-28T13:41:00.000-08:00

It’s amazing how the loose ends of research can sometimes tie together nicely and, perhaps not such a surprise when the loose ends don’t tie together so well. Then, there are those times when the loose ends come tantalizingly close to tying together nicely, but not quite.

Some time ago I purchased a neat 8 by 10 inch black and white photo of a CCC foreman standing beside a pickup truck that bears a CCC license plate. The photo was taken at an unnamed CCC camp in Arizona – at least that’s the story. I made a half-hearted attempt to track down the camp but to little avail.

More recently, I happened to jump over to the James F. Justin Civilian Conservation Corps Museum and scrolled through the photo collection. While there I came upon a series of photos from Company 340, Camp DG-46-A near Kingman, Arizona. One in particular, of a civilian boss, "Cowboy" on a horse, caught my eye because it shows the front end of a pick-up truck with a clear view of the CCC license plate. My heart jumped! The terrain is nearly exactly the same as the terrain in my photo of a CCC foreman beside the pickup truck. Could it be the same truck? I couldn’t check the facts right away, but got around to it the very first chance I got.

Close, really close; but no cigar.

Turns out the license plate on the truck in the picture from the James Justin site is numbered “75549.” Clearly the little truck has seen better days- you can tell just from the condition of the front grill. The license plate sits askew and it appears that a piece of wire has been strung across the front to hold the grill in place. The license plate on the pick-up truck in my photo is “75569.”

While I’m disappointed to find the two pictures are of different trucks, I can at least draw some inferences from them. It now seems clear that my 8x10 photo is indeed an image from an Arizona CCC camp – how else can you explain the fact that the license plate numbers are just twenty digits apart numerically? Add in the fact that the terrain in each photo is nearly identical and I’d venture that the trucks may very likely have been assigned to the same camp. I suspect there are records held somewhere that will list the license plate numbers for each vehicle by camp, but I’m hard pressed to say where those records might be. The only documents I have encountered that include vehicle license numbers from the CCC are accident reports submitted following vehicle crashes. Perhaps there is something to be explored along those lines but in the meantime, I’ll have to be content to know I haven’t quite tied these loose ends together, but it sure made for some interesting research.

2011-11-13T12:51:00.001-08:00

A New Addition to the CCC Literature Pyramid

In my mind’s eye, the canon of Civilian Conservation Corps literature is arrayed in the shape of a pyramid with the broad-based scholarly treatments forming the base and the more detailed individual accounts of the work of the CCC stacking up to create the successive levels of the pyramid until it rises to a single representative personal narrative. I suspect that if each of us has our own “CCC Literature Pyramid” then each is slightly different, but for me the base is formed by John Salmond’s The Civilian Conservation Corps and Neil Maher’s Nature’s New Deal and the rising layers formed by Perry Merrill’s Roosevelt’s Forest Army, Kathy Mays-Smith’s Gold Medal CCC Company, and so forth, rising upward to that single account that epitomizes the CCC story.

And just as the building blocks of each CCC Literature Pyramid are different from person to person, the book that sits atop each pyramid as a representation of the best of the individual personal narratives of life in the CCC differs from person to person as well. For me, Louis Purvis’s The Ace in the Hole rises above all other examples of personal accounts of life in the CCC and thus it sits atop the CCC Literature Pyramid in my mind’s eye, though I never forget the that the canon of CCC literature is built upon the broad based treatments that form the base of the structure.

If you’ve stuck with me thus far, I thank you, because I do have a point. First, I want to get the notion of the CCC canon of literature and the pyramid concept out there for consideration. Second, the fact that a book about the CCC at Grand Canyon occupies the pinnacle of my CCC Literature Pyramid makes the most recently released CCC history offering all the more exciting and interesting because we now have a broad based history of the work of the CCC at Grand Canyon National Park thanks to retired National Park Service Ranger Robert Audretsch.

Shaping the Park and Saving the Boys will become one of those building blocks in the CCC literature pyramid that serves to strengthen the larger canon of knowledge while also providing an important focus on CCC work at a specific location – and what location could be more noteworthy than Grand Canyon National Park?

Robert Audretsch has uncovered some new mysteries even as he shines a light on previously unknown facts about the CCC and its work at Grand Canyon. While touching on aspects of the CCC that are well known and widely covered by previous authors and historians, Audretsch also delves deeply into the details of project work at one of the crown jewels in the National Park system. Shaping the Park and Saving the Boys has a useful combination of scholarly research and popular writing style that make it a book to read for pleasure and retain for research. Granted, some readers may lament the inclusion of so much data from the routine camp inspection reports and similar government documents, but those of us who’ve spent any time at all researching or even thinking about the CCC, know that in many instances, these government reports are all that remain to connect us to the hard, valuable work done nearly eight decades ago. Where else is an author to turn when the boys who performed the work are leaving us at an ever increasing rate? (Bear in mind that CCC enrollees were, on average, older than their younger draftee and enlistee comrades who served in the war that ultimately killed the CCC.)

If a balanced, engaging narrative style and a robust research and reference component aren’t enough to recommend Shaping the Park and Saving the Boys, add the fact that Audretsch has included a collection of photos and illustrations that are second to none and the book has something for everyone. While a few of the photos have appeared elsewhere in other books and articles on the CCC, it is likely that many of the photos are appearing in print publication for the first time and they haven’t been included merely to serve as window dressing to the narrative. Audretsch uses many of the illustrations to support observations and conclusions made in the text; a technique that may be the only method we have one day when all the living participants to the story are gone and the last primary source material is uncovered. Readers will marvel at the image of CCC Director Fechner sitting astride a Grand Canyon mule, shudder at the notion of climbing to the precarious tip top of a CCC built tree tower, and ponder the images of mixed race CCC squads working and posing together at Grand Canyon in an era when Jim Crow held sway throughout so much of this land.

Going forward, as the canon of CCC literature grows, we’re likely to find in each new offering that what was old will be new again, over and over and over. Each new book will, of necessity, recite the important background of the CCC and then move on to carefully uncover some unknown or long forgotten aspects of specific CCC work in one state or locale. The better offerings will include more coverage of the site specific history, perhaps at the risk of leaving newcomers in the dark regarding details of the broader CCC program. Shaping the Park and Saving the Boys succeeds in large part because it strikes a good balance between what is old – the broader history of the CCC as a New Deal Program – and what is new – those tantalizing, heretofore unknown or forgotten details of day-to-day Civilian Conservation Corps work at Grand Canyon. Casual readers will enjoy the book both as a primer on the New Deal’s most popular program, and as a portrait of CCC life at Grand Canyon, while researchers will find themselves returning to its pages again and again for useful nuggets in the text as well as within the footnotes.

This is my first post to CCCRP in some time. I'm hoping to overcome some issues I've had with Blogger so that I can resume posting more new material and perhaps continue the State by State series in the near future.

Problems with Google Blogger

2011-04-11T10:48:00.000-07:00

My goal had been to post a State-By-State entry here at CCCRP every week. I posted last week's entry despite having unresolved formatting problems. I've attempted to post the State-By-State entry for Indiana this morning and find that the same formatting problem exists. I will not continue posting the State-By-State articles until this issue is resolved, either through the Google Blogger system or by re-establishing CCCRP under a different blogging system elsewhere. Because the State-By-State entries rely on columns of numbers and dates, line and paragraph breaks are especially important; otherwise the date just appears on the page in a jumbled mess. I may re-post the Illinois entry over at Forest Army, or I may simply attempt to post the current Indiana entry over at Forest Army. In any event, I'll keep you posted regarding where to find future State-By-State entries going forward.

I'm sorry for the interruption. (You'll note that even this entry, made directly into the posting window does not include paragraph breaks. I won't pretend that this is a good way to post information that I feel is useful to CCC researchers and scholars. I'll figure out something else.)

The CCC State-By-State: Illinois

2011-04-04T07:27:00.000-07:00

Note: Google Blogger refuses to properly format this entry so the paragraph breaks and the individual camp totals and project totals are fouled up. I've tried three times to repost this piece to make it read properly but without success. I apologize for the difficulty and I will continue to remedy the formatting problem. Perhaps it's time to change to a different blogging system. Illinois was situated in the Sixth Corps area, along with Michigan and Wisconsin and according to Perry Merrill writing in Roosevelt’s Forest Army, a total of 92,094 individuals worked in the CCC in Illinois, regardless of their state of origin. The Annual Reports give some indication of enrollment totals in the state of Illinois. For example the Annual Report of the Director of Emergency Conservation Work for fiscal year 1937 breaks out the monthly enrollment totals for Illinois as follows: July 1936: 18,334 August 1936: 17,400 September 1936: 14,368 October 1936: 17,315 November 1936: 16,316 December 1936: 15,554 January 1937: 18,226 February 1937: 17,386 March 1937: 11,127 April 1937: 13,391 May 1937: 12,304 June 1937: 10,890 Remember that these are monthly totals for the number of enrollees who joined the CCC in Illinois – not a total of enrollees actually working in Illinois on a month-to-month basis. In Roosevelt’s Forest Army, Perry Merrill notes that an average of 54 CCC camps operated in Illinois, which is significantly lower than the 70 camps listed in the Annual Report for fiscal year 1937. During roughly that same period (July 1936 through June 1937) the distribution of CCC camps by technical service was reported in the Annual Report as follows: National Forest camps: 8 Private Forest camps: 1 Agricultural Engineering camps: 6 Soil Conservation camps: 27 State Park camps: 27 Military Reservation camps: 1 Merrill’s camp totals for the period ending September 30, 1937 are as follows: National Forest camps: 8 Private Forest camps: 1 Agricultural Engineering camps: 5 Soil Conservation Service camps: 4 State Park camps: 27 Military Reservation camps: 1 Clearly there is a flaw in the data somewhere given that the numbers reported are so significantly different. It doesn’t seem feasible that the Soil Conservation Service lost some 23 camps between the time that the 1937 Annual Report was released and when the camp numbers that Merrill cites came out in September of that year. This is just one example of how difficult it can be to square some of the number totals associated with the Civilian Conservation Corps; heck, historians can’t always agree on how many enrollees actually served in the CCC for that matter. The Annual Report of the Director of the Civilian Conservation Corps, 1939 breaks out the average number of camps in Illinois as follows: State Park camps: 20 National Forest camps: 4 Agricultural Engineering camps: 5 Soil Conservation Service camps: 20 It’s interesting to note that this Annual Report includes an error in the total average number of camps in Illinois by technical service. When you total the individual technical service totals you get a total of 49 camps but the total cited in the chart (Appendix H) lists 50 camps in Illinois. Which brings us back to the question of accuracy in the historic record, which may never be completely squared with reality three-quarters of a century after the fact. The 1937 Annual Report also includes a state-by-state list of specific projects accomplished and here are some totals for specific work projects accomplished in Illinois between July 1936 and June 1937. Vehicle bridges: 18 Foot bridges: 15 Horse bridges: 4 Stock bridges: 1 Lookout towers: 3 Trailside shelters: 11 Cabins: 16 Firebreaks: 93.5 miles Fire suppression: 23,779 man-days Emergency wildlife feeding: 2,394 man-days Bear in mind that this is just a snapshot of a single year’s accomplishments. Merrill notes that over the life of the lifetime of the program, the CCC was responsible for the following totals in Illinois alone: Bridges (all types): 394 Trails (all types): 1, 192 miles Trees planted: 32,938,000 It’s interesting to note that if we take the total number of bridges built during fiscal year 1937 (38) and multiply it by 9.5 (the approximate lifespan of the CCC) we get a total of 361 bridges built by the CCC in Illinois, which is pretty close to the total reported in Merrill (394). All told, Merrill estimates that some $36 million in allotments went to dependents of CCC enrollees in Illinois. In 1934 the American Forestry Association published a book entitled Youth Rebuilds: Stories From the C.C.C., which is a collection of personal narratives from CCC enrollees around the nation. Included in the collection is a piece entitled “A Task, A Plan and Freedom,” by James Kidwell, an enrollee in Company 1659 at Rushville, Illinois. Kidwell, who’d spent several years on the “bum” riding freight trains across the country in search of work, was recruited into the CCC by a social worker in Springfield, Illinois and he wrote, in part: My troubles are drowned by hard work. In forestry I have, for the first time, found a profession that appeals to me. So far as freedom is concerned, in what place could I hope to find more isolation from the cares that imprison civilization than in the endless solitudes of the forest? Larry Sypolt’s book Civilian Conservation Corps: A Selectively Annotated Bibliography includes references to source material related specifically to Illinois, including: “An Historical Study of the Civilian Conservation Corps in Illinois,” a Master’s thesis by Frank Mance while a student at Western Illinois University in 1967. Archeology is another field of work that the CCC was occasionally involved with in states across the nation and, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, Illinois is an example of a state where CCC enrollees conducted archeological work. A set of articles in the September 2008 edition of Illinois Antiquity (Vol. 43 Issue 3) details some of the archeological work done by New Deal agencies in Illinois and while the WPA, the Illinois State Museum and the Illinois State Division of Parks performed the bulk of the excavation work, the CCC performed archeological excavations at three locations in Illinois: Abraham Lincoln’s New Salem State Park (Camp DSP-7), Lincoln Log Cabin State Park (Camp SP-58 or perhaps SCS-5) and Pere Marquette Sate Park (Camp SP-9). Reportedly, archeology work at New Salem and Lincoln Log Cabin State Parks was conducted for the most part by untrained CCC enrollees who simply documented the location and size of features. At Pere Marquette State Park a trained graduate student, with the assistance of CCC enrollee George Maynard, worked 12 weeks in the field to document and excavate prehistoric remains that were unearthed by CCC workers digging the foundation for a park lodge building. Sadly, according to the article in Illinois Antiquity, most of the artifacts have been misplaced in the years since they were unearthed in the 1930s. Reportedly, the only significant artifacts from the site are those uncovered during the initial discovery and excavation by the workers who were building the lodge structure. Not surprisingly, the same is true of the work at New Salem. In one of the articles that appeared in the September 2008 issue of Illinois Antiquity, Robert Mazrim noted that “very unfortunately, there is no evidence of any systematic attempt to record and retrieve artifacts during this period, and very few archaeological objects survive.” Mazrim goes on to describe the CCC’s archeological work at New Salem as “a mixed blessing,” because while the work reconstructed a 19th century village that was once home to future president Abraham Lincoln, the work obliterated much of the original town site and the artifacts that were collected have largely been lost or are not particularly useful because of sloppy documentation. (For my part, I don’t blame the CCC enrollees for these sorts of mistakes. The work of the CCC enrollees everywhere, no matter what the work, was only as good as the foremen and supervisors who were in charge of the project. If blame must be placed, let it fall at the feet of those where were in charge at the time.) For a list of Illinois CCC camps you can visit the CCC Legacy website, HERE. For the section of the U.S. Forest Service administrative history of the CCC that includes information on work in Illinois, click HERE. The April 20, 1935 issue of Happy Days reported on the death of Don Rutherford, an enrollee in Company 613, Marseilles, Illinois, killed while working in a “sand pit.” Just four months later, (August 10, 1935) Happy Days reported on the death of Guy Ellsworth Lagg, an enrollee in Company 639 at Camp Skokie Valley. Lagg was reportedly killed by lighting. The November 2, 1935 issue of Happy Days reported on the death of Mess Steward Cordell Gibson. Gibson, a member of Company 3676 at Lawrenceville, Illinois, was killed in a car crash. As always, the state CCC camp map was taken from a larger map in Cohen’s Tree Army. I simply isolated Illinois and highlighted the camp locations to make it easier to read. To get an idea of the plan and scope of the State-By-State series, read the initial post here.

The C.C.C. State-By-State: Idaho

2011-03-28T09:50:00.000-07:00

One need only glance at a CCC camp location map to realize Idaho had a lot of CCC camps and a lot of those CCC camps were Forest Service camps. The Annual Reports also bear this out. For example, Appendix C of The Annual Report of the Director of Emergency Conservation Work for fiscal year 1937 breaks down the average distribution of CCC camps by state and by technical service. Here’s the average for Idaho for FY1937:

National Forest camps: 33

State Forest camps: 5

Private Forest camps: 1

Soil Conservation camps: 5

State Park camps: 1

It should be noted that there is a discrepancy in this particular chart (Appendix C) in that the total number of camps listed for all services is 51 but the total number of camps in Idaho if you simply add up the totals for each service was 45. Likely this is due to the fact that the compiler or editor mistakenly listed the total number of Department of the Interior camps in Idaho as 7, when in fact the number should be just one (the sole State Park camp).

While we’re on the subject of camp types in Idaho, let’s look at the distribution of camps by service type for fiscal year 1939. Appendix H of The Annual Report of the Director of the Civilian Conservation Corps for fiscal year 1939 breaks down Idaho’s CCC camp distribution like this:

National Forest camps: 30

State Forest camps: 3

Private Forest camps: 1

Soil Conservation camps: 4

Bureau of Reclamation camps: 4

State Park camps: 1

Division of Grazing camps: 10

In this case, the Annual Report seems to be without error, as the total number of camps listed for all services is 53, which matches the total listed individually.

Comparing the two years, we see that while the U.S. Forest Service and the state forest each lost camps, Idaho gained a total of 8 camps altogether, in large part due to the establishment of Bureau of Reclamation and Division of Grazing camps. And just what did Idaho gain from the CCC? Thankfully we’ve got Perry Merrill’s book Roosevelt’s Forest Army to turn to for some details, and the camp total seems to compare favorably with the available Annual Reports. Merrill notes that an average of 51 CCC camps operated in Idaho. The aggregate number of Idaho men who gained work as a result of the CCC was 28,074, which included 20,292 junior and veteran enrollees, 1,038 Indian and 6,744 non-enrolled personnel. Merrill also points out that 86,775 individuals from all states worked in Idaho between 1933 and 1942. This means of course that many of the CCC enrollees who worked in Idaho were brought in from other states.

Merrill’s list of work accomplishments indicates the CCC built 236 lookout houses and towers, 91 impounding and large diversion dams and that they strung just over 3,000 miles of telephone lines.

Let’s take a closer look at individual work accomplishments listed in the 1939 Annual Report. The list shows that, among other things, the CCC was responsible for the following improvements in Idaho during fiscal year 1939:

Vehicle bridges: 31

Garages: 10

Latrines and Toilets: 47

Lookout houses and towers: 18

Camp stoves and fireplaces: 68

Cattle guards: 202

And the report shows that from mid 1938 to mid 1939, the CCC spent an astonishing 20,286 man-days fighting forest fires in Idaho!

Comparing just one improvement type – construction of cattle guards – between 1937 and 1939, we might get a snapshot of what it meant to have an increase in the number of Division of Grazing camps between these two reporting periods. In fiscal year 1937 when there were no Division of Grazing camps operating in Idaho, the Annual Report shows that 30 cattle guards were constructed in the state. Two years later, with 10 Division of Grazing camps now operational, the number jumps to 202. (There was also an increase in the number of corrals constructed, with 7 corrals built by the CCC in 1937 compared to 11 corrals built in 1939.) Admittedly, these figures represent a tiny fraction of the statewide work done but comparing them from year to year helps us understand what it meant to have particular technical services working in a state. Fewer Division of Grazing camps in Idaho meant fewer cattle guards and corrals built in Idaho.

Comparisons like this are less useful in sizing up the number of man-days spent fighting forest fires. Recall that in the 1938-1939 reporting period, the CCC spent 20,286 man-days fighting forest fires in Idaho. Two years earlier, during the period 1936-1937, the CCC spent more time (26,020 man-days) fighting fires. This might be due to the fact that there were more forestry-related CCC camps in the state during the 1936-37 time frame (five more forestry camps operated in Idaho in FY1937 than in FY1939) but it might also be due to the fact that there were fewer fires to fight one year versus the other, or that crews were better trained two years later and thus fires were brought under control more quickly. What seems clear now is that over the lifetime of the CCC, the United States saw a steady decline in the numbers of acres lost to wildland fire, but that is a topic for another time.

The Federal Security Agency Annual Report of the Director of the Civilian Conservation Corps for Fiscal Year 1942 includes some interesting and detailed summaries of CCC work projects that are often overlooked by current historians. The report includes a section entitled “CCC Camps and the Bureau of Animal Industry.” Turns out there were six Bureau of Animal Industry CCC camps scattered across the United States and one of them was located in Dubois, Idaho. The report explains that the Animal Industry stations were research facilities established for the purpose of finding better breeding, feeding and management practices for domestic farm animals and poultry. Referring specifically to the station at Dubois, Idaho, the report goes on to state:

"The CCC camps happened to come when the unusual assistance which they could give was sorely needed at several stations. For example, at Dubois, Idaho, a Bankhead-Jones Special Research project had just been added to this Bureau’s regular appropriation for sheep research. This made necessary a two to three-fold expansion in the research facilities at that station. This meant the opening up of additional land, construction of roads and trails, major extensions of the water and sewerage systems, and extensive landscaping around new laboratory buildings and dwellings. Not without such a unit as a CCC camp, bringing its special equipment and its own housing could it have been possible to equip this plant for the enlarged program so quickly with such small cost to the Government, or so smoothly and well."

You can access an online listing of Idaho’s CCC camps here. (The list is taken from the camp list at the CCC Legacy website.) You’ll note that the Bureau of Animal Industry camps were designated by the letter “A.”

The 1942 Annual Report also includes mention of Idaho CCC enrollees hired by lumber producers: “Sixty-eight CCC boys were hired from one camp in Idaho by a Boise company in four months and this company had over 500 former CCC’s on their payrolls at Pacific Island bases where the Japanese started hostilities in December 1941.”

In 1934 the American Forestry Association published a small book entitled Youth Rebuilds: Stories from the C.C.C. The book is a collection of personal narratives written by CCC enrollees across the United States and it includes a story entitled “The Next Ridge to the West,” written by Henry F. Vicinus, an enrollee in Company 1276 at Camp F-48, Clarkia, Idaho. In his life before the CCC, Vicinus was a newspaper reporter and his narrative is especially well written. Here are some excerpts from Vicinus’s story.

Vicinus wrote of his struggles before enrolling:

"Winter came and was little better. The old tuxedo was the first thing to be sold; then the wardrobe trunk, then the camera, all at ten per cent of their value, and finally – my God, what a blow! – the old typewriter. I was no longer a reporter! When “Bel” Hildreth hunted me up to tell me the local CCC quota of men was leaving the next day, he found me on a farm, with my last ragged clothing on my back, and that back nearly broken."

Concerning his time in a conditioning camp, Vicinus recalled:

"Camp Dix was a grand scramble. There was kidding, there was bullying, and each man developed his own little defense to it – some by excelling in the art of kidding and bullying, some by evading it with snappy comebacks, some by going “over the hill.” Never will I forget my nervousness when I first walked up to the orderly tent and suggested myself as a clerk. Nor will I forget the home-coming feeling I had when I first sat down to that little three-bank Underwood and started making rosters. There was something to work at, to occupy my mind, and to do well, looking forward to advancement… Neither will I forget the tense expectancy at the prospect of leaving…once we got the orders to leave for Idaho."

Finally, of his enrollment period in the mountains of Idaho, Vicinus wrote:

"There is, too, something purgative and expansive about the West. One only need stand by a huge tamarack or white pine, look over the valley below him, and gaze miles and miles away where the hazy mountains rise and fall like the waves of a giant ocean….to feel it…And now…it is time to go back to the old surroundings. I shall return not exactly as I left. I have conquered one world. Why should I cower from another?"

To read a section of the online history The Forest Service and the Civilian Conservation Corps that deals with the 9th Corps area and work in Idaho, click here.

Larry Sypolt’s very useful book Civilian Conservation Corps: A Selectively Annotated Bibliography includes references to materials dealing specifically with the CCC in Idaho. In the section on the 9th Corps Area (Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Nevada, California and Yellowstone National Park) you’ll see the following source materials listed:

“The CCC in Idaho,” by Judith Austin, Idaho Yesterdays 27 (Fall 1983).

“I’d do it again in a minute!” The Civilian Conservation Corps on the Salmon National Forest, by Michael Crosby, Salmon Idaho, 1997.

Outdoor Idaho. CCC in Idaho. Documentary film by Pat Metzler and Bruce Reichert, 1999.

The work of the CCC in Idaho was not without tragedy. The ruggedness of the country, the frequency of forest fires and the impetuousness of youth thrown together far from home, conspired to take the lives of enrollees in a variety of ways. The April 7, 1935 Edition of the Spokesman-Review reported the death of 25-year old Fred Hunter, an enrollee from Company 245, Chatcolet, Idaho. Hunter died of injuries received “when his motorcycle collided with the concrete rail of the overhead bridge near Lapwai…He was badly crushed.”

The Spokesman-Review also reported on the death of Oscar Kee, an enrollee at the Avery, Idaho CCC camp. 31-year-old Kee was run over and killed by a tractor in March 1935.

There were also instances of boyish exuberance leading to injury, as was reported in a June 1935 issue of the Spokesman-Review. Under the headline, “Bruiser in CCC Tucked in Jail,” the article states:

"Six months is sentence given youth who broke boy’s rib in “initiation.” Cortland Rockwell, 19, was given six months in jail here today by Probate Judge M.G. Whitney, on a charge of battery that developed from an “initiation” at the Ludlow creek CCC camp yesterday. Frank Falk, a rookie being initiated, suffered a broken rib and landed in the Fort George Wright hospital at Spokane when the rough play of the enrollees turned into something more than “monkey business.” He resisted and was set upon by the ringleaders of the “degree team,” bossed by Rockwell, it was said. John Machan, 18, held in the Kootenai county jail here overnight, with Rockwell, as a witness, was released after the trial, but Cecil Sowards, 18, also jailed as a witness yesterday, was held for further investigation."

Finally, the August 24, 1935 issue of the CCC newspaper Happy Days reported on the death of 19-year old Creath Cupp of Huntington, West Virginia, who was killed in a truck accident near Wallace, Idaho. Happy Days reported that Cupp was from Company 565. A photo of the accident site appeared in the Spokane-Review with the following caption: "One man was killed and more than a dozen were injured when the CCC truck shown here drove down a hillside on the Dobson Pass highway near Wallace early Sunday morning, while it was conveying a group of 24 CCC workers back to camp F-150 at Hawk Ranger station from their Sunday holiday in Wallace. The dead man was Creath Cupp, 19 of Huntington, W. Va. Excessive speed on the sharp turn is blamed for the tragedy."

The C.C.C. State-BY-State: Georgia

2011-03-21T14:46:00.000-07:00

Georgia was situated in the 4th Corps area along with North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana. The 4th Corps area was commanded by Major General George Van Horn Moseley, who wrote of the CCC: “Though I feel that all of the participating Federal departments – Agriculture, Interior, Labor, and War – have done a fine job, the credit for the wonderful reputation achieved by the Civilian Conservation Corps must go primarily to the lads themselves. I have never seen a finer group of young men. They have met their part of the bargain just one hundred percent, and they have reaped a just reward.” (Moseley's comments appeared as a preface to a 1935 District "E" Annual. It should be noted that Moseley's high opinion of CCC enrollees may not have extended to all enrollees. Salmond refers to him as a "quasi-fascist" and by inference we can assume he may not have been highly in favor of the recruitment of black enrollees into the CCC.)

The Federal Security Agency Annual Report of the Director of the Civilian Conservation Corps for fiscal year 1942 includes the following detailed reference to CCC work in Georgia on page 48 under the heading Southern Region – Atlanta, Georgia. The entry states:
“Largely through the fire control improvements and facilities constructed by the CCC, it has been possible for the State Foresters in the Southern Region to provide fire control for millions of acres of privately owned timber lands that otherwise would have continued to suffer severe damage annually. At the beginning of the CCC program in 1933 there were about 47 million acres in the South receiving fire protection. By January 1, 1942, this had increased to 75 million acres.”

No doubt, Georgia garnered its share of important forest protection improvements in the southern United States as well as other valuable work by the creation of the CCC in 1933. Perry Merrill breaks out some of the work totals in his book Roosevelt’s Forest Army. For example, in Georgia, between 1933 and 1942, the CCC strung 3,638 miles of telephone lines, build 425,829 check dams and erosion control features, planted over 22 million trees and spent over 153,000 man-days fighting forest fires. Dependents living in Georgia received over $19 million in allotments from enrollees during that time!

As for the aforementioned forest protection work, the CCC erected 500-watt radio transmitters at two sites to improve communication between fire towers and fire crews. Additionally, the CCC built facilities at Timber Protective Organization sites established as part of a state program.

Merrill notes that the average number of CCC camps to operate in Georgia was 35 and we can compare this average against camp totals for 1937 and 1939. According to the 1937 Annual Report of the Director of Emergency Conservation Work, in fiscal year 1937 a total of 40 CCC camps operated in Georgia, distributed as follows:
National Forest camps: 9
Private Forest camps: 10
Soil Conservation camps: 9
National Monument camps: 2
State Park camps: 6
Military Reservation camps: 4
In fiscal year 1939 the Annual Report of the Director of the Civilian Conservation Corps reports that a total of just 27 CCC camps operated in Georgia, distributed as follows:
National Park camps: 3
State Park camps: 4
National Forest camps: 5
Private Forest camps: 5
Biological Survey camps: 1
Soil Conservation camps: 9
(It’s interesting to note that between 1937 and 1939 the title of the annual report changed to reflect the program’s change from being called Emergency Conservation Work to Civilian Conservation Corps.)

As for enrollment, the Annual Reports also list enrollment totals for 1937 and 1939 that provide a snapshot look at CCC enrollment in Georgia. Georgia’s monthly enrollment totals for fiscal year 1937 stack up like this:
July 1936: 12,299
August 1936: 11,605
September 1936: 9,941
October 1936: 12,350
November 1936: 11,706
December 1936: 11,150
January 1937: 12,125
February 1937: 11,675
March 1937: 9,752
April 1937: 10, 593
May 1937: 10, 182
June 1937: 9, 503

The Annual Report for fiscal year 1939 shows a noticeable drop in monthly enrollment in the state of Georgia:
July 1938: 9,250
August 1938: 8,906
September 1938: 8,013
October 1938: 9,179
November 1938: 8,942
December 1938: 8,540
January 1939: 9,060
February 1939: 8,773
March 1939: 5,684
April 1939: 8,949
May 1939: 8,693
June 1939: 7,958

The Georgia Department of Natural Resources has a terrific page that lists CCC-built structures in the State Parks that you can still enjoy today. Click here to see the list.

There is a short paper on the history of the CCC in Georgia posted at the website of the Civilian Conservation Corps Legacy. Written by Betty van Dongeren in 2007, the paper seems to deal more with the overall history of the CCC with a few references to work in Georgia, but it includes a list of sources and some photos. You can view the paper as a pdf document here.

Racism in the CCC was not a problem solely in the southern United States, however in the South where Jim Crow laws held sway for decades even after the end of the CCC, the issue of race in the CCC is particularly powerful. John Salmond’s seminal work on the CCC, an online copy of which you can read here, includes a chapter titled “The Selection of Negroes.” Salmond makes particular reference to Georgia in the third paragraph of this chapter, writing: “Scarcely had selection [of CCC enrollees] begun, however, when reports from the South indicated that in that desperately poor region local selection agents were deliberately excluding Negroes from all CCC activities. Particularly deplorable were events in Georgia, which had a Negro population of 1,071,125 in 1930, or 36 per cent of the total state population. On May 2, 1933, an Atlanta resident, W.H. Harris, protested to the secretary of labor that in Clarke County, Georgia, with a 60 per cent Negro population, no non-whites had yet been selected for CCC work. Persons, director of CCC selection, immediately demanded an explanation from the Georgia state director of selection, John de la Perriere. The Georgia director blandly replied that all applications for CCC enrolment in Clarke County were “classed A, B and C. All colored applications fell into the classes B and C. The A class being the most needy, the selections were made from same.”

Despite further complaints from local groups, like the Atlanta branch of the National Urban League, officials in Washington preferred to remain outside the fray, with the hope that the situation would adjust itself, “without any apparent intervention from Washington.” But as it turned out, such a hands-off approach was not going to work over the long run and Director of CCC Selection Persons again followed up with the director of CCC selections in Georgia (John de la Perriere), this time by telephone. De la Perriere ultimately admitted that blacks were not being selected but denied it was on account of racism but rather, de la Perriere said that, “at this time of the farming period in the State, it is vitally important that negroes remain in the counties for chopping cotton and for planting other produce.” Persons knew better simply by looking at Georgia’s population statistics compared to enrollment of blacks in the CCC. Eventually it took a call to the governor of Georgia and a threat to withhold Georgia’s entire CCC enrollment quota to improve the situation; although one could easily argue that the issue of black CCC enrollment in the South was never fully resolved given that blacks were never represented in the CCC in numbers equal to their percentage of the population.

Ultimately, the experience of black enrollees in Georgia and nationwide, must be viewed through the prism of history and judged today as a series of small success that came about despite an overarching attitude of prejudice at the time. While the documentation records scores of vile episodes where blacks were denied the same opportunities in the CCC as their white counterparts, the record also reflects that local communities, in Georgia and nationwide, frequently embraced the all-black CCC companies that moved into their neighborhoods and often fought to keep them. For a longer, more detailed discussion of the African-American experience in the CCC, see the recent post over at Forest Army.

Larry N. Sypolt’s book Civilian Conservation Corps: A Selectively Annotated Bibliography includes a number of listings for material dealing with the work of the CCC in Georgia, including the following items:

“The New Deal and Georgia’s Black Youth,” by Michael S. Holmes in the Journal of Southern History 38 (August 1972), pages 443-460.

“The Civilian Conservation Corps and the State Park: An Approach to the Management of the Designed Historic Landscape Resources at Franklin D Roosevelt State Park, Pine Mountain Georgia,” a 1992 University of Georgia Master’s thesis by Lucy Ann Lawliss.

Mountaineers and Rangers: A History of the Federal Forest Management in the Southern Appalachians, 1900-81, by Shelley Smith Mastran, published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Washington, DC, 1971.

NAACP Legal File: Cases Supported, CCC Boys, 1938-1939, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Frederick, MD, University Publications of America, 1988. This particular resource deals with the NAACP’s involvement in the cases of three Black CCC enrollees charged with murder in Georgia.

To view a collection of photos related to the work of the CCC in Georgia, visit Vanishing Georgia, the Digital Library of Georgia. Once there, type in “Civilian Conservation Corps” in the search box and be amazed at what you find.

For an interesting page on Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park and the location of its CCC camp remnants, visit Waymarking.com. While you’re there, open the entire folder of waymarked CCC sites and you’ll marvel at the nearly 200 sites listed (to date). While we’re at it, here’s a link to the waymarking page for a CCC built bridge at Indian Springs State Park, Georgia. This website is particularly interesting and useful if you’re looking for CCC work in your region or neighborhood.

The December 16, 1933 issue of Happy Days reported the death of enrollee Alton Thrasher of Company 456, Robertstown, Georgia, in an automobile accident. The January 19, 1935 issue of Happy Days reported the death of Bill Bruner of Company 1414. Bruner was reportedly killed in a diving accident.

Sources: As with all the State-By-State posts, the map was taken from Stan Cohen's Tree Army. I highlighted the camp locations with colored dots for easier reference. The photo is of the Company 446 baseball team at camp D-92-G, Brunswick, Georgia and it also comes from the Cohen book. The Happy Days newspaper masthead was scanned from an original copy in my collection.

The C.C.C. State-By-State: A Progress Update

2011-03-14T11:08:00.000-07:00

One-Fifth of the Way There

With last week’s posting of the Florida entry in the State-By-State series, we’re roughly 1/5th of the way through the U.S. states and territories. Now might be a good time for me to catch my breath, perhaps update the stated goals and purpose of the series and this may be a good opportunity to point out some changes that have already been made to the individual state entries already posted.

Statistics, Personal Narratives and Illustrations
Initially, I’d made it clear that I planned to rely heavily on the individual summaries of state CCC work found in Perry Merrill’s book Roosevelt’s Forest Army and I’ve done so. However as the postings have progressed, I’ve found that three Annual Reports in my collection are serving as a very useful set of source materials to supplement Merrill’s snapshot of state work. This has had the effect of making the posts a bit heavy on numerical statistics and lighter on individual camp accomplishments, which may not be a benefit to the casual reader, however I’m hoping that the more detailed camp totals, work statistics and enrollment numbers represent data that is largely unavailable to local researchers – especially to high school and undergraduate students – who may be seeking obscure statistical data for papers, reports or presentations. The sort of information that may be boring to most readers will be a boon to the occasional scholar who seeks to include such details in their work. As an extension of this, if you are a scholar who is doing research and you’d like to have scanned images from the Annual Reports that I cite in the State-By-State series, post a comment and let me know how to reach you and I’ll gladly do what I can to get the information to you. (I wouldn’t have called this a “resource” page if I hadn’t intended to share useful – if sometimes mundane – information.)

Another benefit to using numbers from the Annual Reports as companion data for the project information in Roosevelt’s Forest Army has been the ability to compare Merrill’s “snapshot” of CCC work against the “snapshot” of work shown in the annual reports for 1937, 1939 and to a lesser degree, 1942. The comparisons aren’t meant to validate or discredit Merrill’s numbers, but more to show trends in the program between 1933 and 1942. Merrill’s state work summaries typically list an average number of camps in a state, where the Annual Reports for 1937 and 1939 provide a more detailed breakdown of the camp totals for their respective fiscal year. An average is useful, but I hope that researchers will find it’s also useful to know if the totals for 1937 and 1939 are above or below the average cited by Merrill.

To offset some of the heavily statistical information in the individual posts, I’m working to include personal histories of CCC enrollees whenever possible, and will go back to add those personal histories to the state’s already posted when necessary. One great source of these personal narratives has been the book Youth Rebuilds, which was published in 1934. I’m also throwing in data on selected cases of CCC fatalities in each state as they become available.

Something else that I’ve found as I’ve worked through the first 10 state articles is that photographs aren’t always easily accessible or those photos that may be available are covered in copyright restrictions. I’m not in the habit of pirating images from other sites, so more than likely you’ll find that I include links to sites that have useful or interesting photos of CCC work in particular states, rather than lifting the images from those sites for use here at the CCC Resource Page. Ultimately, visitors here will have to choose whether or not they choose to use images found on linked sites. This issue has become more important to me lately, as I’ve seen some of my own work and images used on other sites without a proper citation (to say nothing of the fact that the user took the material without asking first). With this in mind, visitors here need to keep me honest, too. If you see images or references not properly cited or credited here at the CCC Resource Page, please post a comment explaining the problem so that I can remedy the situation.

Updates to Past Posts

Since starting the State-By-State series at the first of the year, I’ve revised just two entries: Alabama and Arkansas. The Alabama entry was updated to include more information regarding Robert Pasquill’s book The Civilian Conservation Corps in Alabama – specifically its lack of detailed references to racism in the CCC. The Arkansas entry was updated to include a better explanation of monthly enrollment figures. Additionally, I added a brief discussion of racism in the selection and deployment of black enrollees in Arkansas. In both cases, the new information on racism grew out of a post I did in honor of Black History Month over at the Forest Army blog.

To date, roughly two and a half months into this project, I’ve not had any comments posted regarding the State-By-State series, however it seems that visitor hits are higher lately on average. Please, if you enjoy something you see here, if something was especially helpful to you in your research, if you have questions or need greater detail, or if you wish to offer constructive criticism, please leave a comment and if you need more information, make sure there’s some way I can contact you. My goal with this blog is to create a resource for CCC researchers of all ages, to help grade schoolers, high schoolers and college scholars in their search for information on the Civilian Conservation Corps.

The C.C.C. State-by-State: Florida

2011-03-07T11:08:00.000-08:00

In Roosevelt’s Forest Army, Perry Merrill notes that an average of 21 CCC camps operated in the state of Florida with an average distribution among the technical services as follows: 7 National Forest camps, 9 Private Forest camps, 1 Animal Industry camp, 1 Biological Survey camp and 5 State Park camps. Merrill also notes that just under 50,000 Florida men were given employment by the CCC including 45,887 junior and veteran enrollees, 101 Indians and 3,026 so-called non-enrolled personnel which included camp officers and supervisors.

We can compare Merrill’s overall average to numbers cited in a couple of Annual Reports to get an idea of how the camp distributions ebbed and flowed between 1933 and 1942. For example, the Annual Report of the Director of Emergency Conservation Work for fiscal year 1937 lists a total of 23 CCC camps in the state of Florida, broken out as follows:
National Forest: 7
Private Forest: 9
Animal Industry: 1
Biological Survey: 1
State Park: 5
So during fiscal year 1937 the number of CCC camps in Florida was slightly above the overall average of 21 cited in Merrill’s Roosevelt’s Forest Army.

Compare this to the distribution of 16 total Florida CCC camps as reported in the 1939 Annual Report of the Director of the Civilian Conservation Corps:
State Park: 7
National Forest: 4
Private Forest: 4
Biological Survey: 1
So for FY 1939 Florida was below the average as reported in Merrill’s overall camp total. You’ll also note that the “animal industry” camp was disbanded some time in the intervening years and that work on private forest projects decreased. (It’s also interesting to see that the title of the Annual Report was changed to reflect the program’s name change from Emergency Conservation Work to Civilian Conservation Corps.)

So what exactly was the work of the CCC enrollees at Florida’s seemingly short lived animal industry camp? The Federal Security Agency’s Annual Report of the Director of the Civilian Conservation Corps for 1942 offers some insight into this type of CCC camp. According to the report, CCC camps were established at Bureau of Animal Industry sites located in Auburn, Alabama, Dubois, Idaho, Jeanerette, Louisiana, Beltsville, Maryland, Miles City, Montana and in Brooksville, Florida. The report describes the work of these camps in some detail:
These stations are research stations devoted to finding better practices in breeding, feeding, and management of domestic farm animals or poultry, and in disease prevention and control. All but one of these stations are located on tracts of land given to this bureau for experimental use. In all cases the land, buildings, and other facilities had to be adapted or newly planned for the best advantage of the research work. This is a costly process in cases of major field stations, and the temptation always has been to begin the livestock research work to which the station was dedicated before adequate or ideal plant facilities became available…The CCC camps happened to come when the unusual assistance which they could give was sorely needed at several stations…In short, through the unusual and able assistance of CCC camps at several of the major field stations, the Bureau of Animal Industry now has field stations better equipped for the research at hand, and therefore better able to give a good account of the money appropriated to it for livestock research work.

In the case of the Brooksville, Florida research station, the land for the facility was donated in 1932, prior to the establishment of the CCC, and according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture news story, the facility now covers about 3,000 acres and employs 20 full time state and federal employees. Given this explanation, it seems likely that CCC enrollees helped with setting up the facilities at the experimental station and once the site was up and running, Florida’s animal industry camp was no longer necessary; consequently we see the animal industry camp listed in the 1937 Annual Report but missing from the 1939 report.

Using the fiscal year 1939 Annual Report for monthly enrollment, the figures break out like this:
July 1938: 4,986
August 1938: 4,845
September 1938: 4,057
October 1938: 4,789
November 1938: 4,599
December 1938: 4,149
January 1939: 4,660
February 1939: 4,487
March 1939: 3,029
April 1939: 4,548
May 1939: 4,377
June 1939: 3,922
These are the monthly totals for enrollment in the state of Florida – not the total number of CCC workers working in the state each month.

The same Annual Report (FY1939) lists individual totals for work accomplished and in that listing we find that between July 1938 and June 1939, CCC enrollees in Florida installed over 222,000 square yards of stream and lake bank protection on one hand but only built six camp stoves or fireplaces. Other work completed within this wide range of accomplishments included:
Open ditches: 10,100 linear feet
Fighting forest fires: 6,754 man days
Educational, guide or contact station work: 2,312 man days
Excavation of earthen channels, canals and ditches: 62,618 cubic yards
Beach improvement: 6 miles

The Florida Park Service Alumni Association has a nice page dedicated to documenting CCC park staff. It’s a work in progress but clearly their dedication to the project shines through.

The Friends of Florida State Parks has a wonderful page devoted to the CCC on their website. Here, among other things, you’ll learn that the first CCC camp in Florida’s state park system was established at Highlands Hammock State Park in 1934.

Many folks, including me for a time, labor under the misconception that the World War I veterans killed in the 1935 hurricane were CCC enrollees when in fact they were assigned to several Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) camps in the Keys. (For an example, click here. I’m sure the author’s intentions are good in this case, but the article erroneously states that those killed in the Florida hurricane were CCC enrollees and that Robert Fechner was head of the CCC over the course of its entire lifespan, neither of which was the case.) Certainly the fact that the World War I veterans were FERA workers and not CCC enrollees doesn’t diminish the tragedy in any way and indeed there is a connection in that CCC enrollees helped with clean up and recovery of bodies in the days and weeks following the horrific tragedy. If anything, this long-standing misconception is simply a good illustration of how so many of the New Deal programs have gotten lumped together over time and it may support the claims of some who say the CCC garners some praise that should rightly go to agencies like FERA and the WPA. For a great, accurate account of the Bonus Army and the veteran’s FERA camps that grew out of that episode, read The Bonus Army: An American Epic by Dickson and Allen.

I’ll close out this account of CCC work in Florida with a mention of some CCC enrollees who did die while working in Florida. The December 3, 1933 issue of the CCC newspaper Happy Days reported that enrollee Michael G. Kovich of Company 295, Sumatra, Florida was shot in a nearby town. Kovich’s death is among the first 20 deaths reported in Happy Days during the lifespan of the CCC.

On May 19, 1934, Happy Days reported the suicide of an enrollee by the last name of Fraser at the District G Headquarters in Barrancas, Florida.

September 15, 1934 issue of Happy Days reported on the drowning death of Albert Oliva of Company 262 at Sebring, Florida.

Finally, jumping ahead in time, the January 13, 1940 issue of Happy Days reported on the death of James Devoe from Company 4453 at Deleon Springs, Florida. Enrollee Devoe was killed in an auto accident while on leave.

When we think back on the CCC and consider it’s broad scope and far reaching impact and the numbers of men associated with its work, it’s a small wonder than more enrollees weren’t killed in those years between 1933 and 1942.

Sources: As with all the posts in the State-By-State series the map is from Stan Cohen's book The Tree Army. The campstove plan is from a 1930s book on construction of camp stoves. I'm also indebted to Bob Audretsch for his indexing of the Happy Days newspaper.

The C.C.C State-by-State: District of Columbia

2011-02-28T06:46:00.000-08:00

In my introductory post for this series I noted that I planned to rely heavily on Perry Merrill’s summary of benefits to the states in his book Roosevelt’s Forest Army and I’m sticking to that plan, especially in the case of CCC work in the District of Columbia, which is difficult to research on a good day.

For all of its seeming geographic insignificance, the District of Columbia (“DC”) was worthy of two CCC camps according to Merrill and an astounding 11,470 DC men were given employment as a result of the CCC (to say nothing of the many, many politicians who managed to keep getting reelected to at least some degree because of their votes in favor of funding the CCC). A partial statistical breakdown of CCC accomplishments in DC include construction of 20 bridges, 47 camp stoves and fireplaces, 94 table and bench combinations and over 76,000 linear feet of pipe, tile lines and conduit for flood control.

As was already mentioned, specific information regarding the work of the CCC in the District of Columbia is difficult to come by. The CCC Legacy Camp List does not include the District of Columbia, or Alaska or Hawaii. The list does indicate that DC was located in the Third Corps area along with Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia.

Merrill refers to two specific CCC work projects in DC: the National Arboretum and Rock Creek Park. At the moment the website for the National Arboretum contains just one passing reference to the CCC, in an article about botanist Oliver Freeman. (You can see that article here.) There is a reference to the National Arboretum in Chapter 5 of the National Park Service Administrative History of the CCC. It seems that a company of black enrollees was selected to march in President Roosevelt’s 1937 inaugural parade. As for Rock Creek Park, you’ll find an all too brief reference to the CCC in the Administrative History of Rock Creek Park. Indeed, it’s brief enough that I’ll quote it at length here:
A Civilian Conservation Corps contingent then occupied the site (Camp Good Will), designated Camp NP-14, Rock Creek Park. Before and during its use of the area, the CCC performed a range of improvements in the park and Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway. Its enrollees cleared the creek channel and stabilized its banks with riprap, planted trees and shrubs, built more than two miles of bridle path with log hurdles for jumping, and constructed an addition to the Park Police lodge, which had been built with a $13,500 public works allotment on Beach Drive below Joyce Road in 1936.

Believe it or not, the Annual Reports do list enrollment figures for the District of Columbia, so given a lack of other detailed information on the work of the CCC in Washington, D.C., I’ll post the monthly enrollment figures for 1937 and 1939.

The 1937 Annual Report of the Director of Emergency Conservation Work listed the monthly enrollee totals for the District of Columbia for fiscal year 1937 as follows:
July 1936: 845
August 1936: 755
September 1936: 656
October 1936: 850
November 1936: 811
December 1936: 753
January 1937: 1,008
February 1937: 908
March 1937: 680
April 1937: 856
May 1937: 776
June 1937: 704
Average: 800/month

Two years later the numbers aren’t vastly different. The 1939 Annual Report of the Director the Civilian Conservation Corps listed the total number of CCC enrollees who enrolled in the CCC from the District of Columbia as:
July 1938: 822
August 1938: 778
September 1938: 700
October 1938: 858
November 1938: 804
December 1938: 735
January 1939: 916
February 1939: 892
March 1939: 645
April 1939: 853
May 1939: 809
June 1939: 661
Average: 789/month

So, in fiscal year 1937, an average of 800 CCC enrollees hailed from the District of Columbia on a month-to-month basis. In fiscal year 1939 that monthly average slipped slightly to 789 enrollees per month, and for some reason January was the enrollment high water mark both years. I’ve noted elsewhere in this series that CCC enrollment figures ebbed and flowed in response to a number of factors; for example in areas where annual crops were gathered, it is often found that local enrollment in CCC camps dropped off right about the time that workers were needed to bring in that year’s harvest. It’s intriguing to consider why enrollment in Washington D.C. suddenly spiked in January of 1937 and 1939.

Certainly, the National Arboretum seems to have been the primary CCC work site (the camp was designated NA-1) in the District of Columbia and you’ll find a complimentary few paragraphs are devoted to that work in the 1942 Annual Report of the Civilian Conservation Corps (fiscal year 1942). Here are the details from that report in a section titled Plant Industry and the CCC:
Two CCC camps were assigned to the Bureau of Plant Industry. One of these, within the District of Columbia, since 1934, has been doing preliminary improvement and construction work for a national arboretum. The other at Cheyenne, Wyoming, started in 1935, has been working at a federal horticultural field station.

The national Arboretum is located in Northeast Washington just off the Bladensburg Road. The CCC company did a large amount of permanent work, all essential to the main purpose of the Arboretum. This camp came to the Arboretum in 1934 and was closed on December 15, 1941.

Much of the Arboretum land is in an early stage of development, and the camp contributed very substantially in this basic development work. Construction of roads, drainage, water systems, and fencing have been of primary importance. The fencing of the entire tract of some 400 acres with strong, high and permanent wire fence, with concrete curbing, was one of the outstanding CCC jobs. Five pithouses and a combination heating plant and potting shed were constructed by CCC labor. Important landscape projects have been the construction of three ponds and extensive grading in certain areas. Much soil perperation (sic) and planting of trees and shrubs was done. At this particular stage in the development of the National Arboretum the CCC work was decidedly a major contribution.

Given the glowing summary of the CCC’s work at the National Arboretum, it seems a bit sad that their current website doesn’t include any history on camp NA-1. Perhaps as we approach the 80th anniversary of the creation of the CCC in 2013, the folks at the National Arboretum will discover some of their own history and share it with the rest of us.

(Perhaps it is a commentary on the lack of available information on the work of the CCC in D.C. that there are no maps or photos of CCC work there that I have been able to track down. I’m sure they are out there somewhere.)

The C.C.C. State-By-State: Delaware

2011-02-21T18:39:00.000-08:00

The state of Delaware was situated in the 2nd Corps area along with New Jersey and New York. In Roosevelt’s Forest Army, hidden about halfway through his rundown of CCC work in Delaware, Perry Merrill tosses out a unique factoid that sets Delaware apart from all other states and territories. Basically, Merrill notes that Delaware was the last state to get CCC camps. Evidently, the purchase of just over 1,000 acres for the Redden State Forest cleared the way for establishment of CCC camps so the first Delaware camp wasn’t established until October 1933 during the second enrollment period. That first camp, Camp S-53-D was quickly occupied by Company 2233V, company of World War I veterans who were moved from a project in nearby Vermont. So, while the total available information about the CCC in Delaware may be limited, there will always be that one interesting statistic: Delaware was the last state to have CCC camps.

(Now, here’s a question to ponder. It has long been thought that CCC camps were numbered in the order that they were established within each state. Thus, the first camp to be established in Delaware would be S-1-D, or so one would assume. Why was Delaware’s first camp numbered “53”? I’ve no idea but thought it would be an interesting question to toss out there.)

The State of Delaware has a scanned image of typewritten song lyrics penned by an enrollee at a CCC camp in Lewes, Delaware. The website notes that Delaware’s CCC camps were located in Lewes, Magnolia, Leipsic, Georgetown, Slaughter Beach, Frederica and Wyoming and that one of the main projects of the CCC was construction of drainage ditches for mosquito control.

There is one blog entry about the CCC at the State of Delaware’s blog site and you can view it here. It’s a neat little piece about mosquito control.

Merrill notes that the maximum number of CCC camps to operate in Delaware was 8 and that all but one (the aforementioned Camp S-53-D) were soil conservation and mosquito control camps. Even for its small size, an average of 5,382 Delaware men were given employment because of the CCC.

If we compare Merrill’s camp total against the Annual Reports for fiscal years 1937 and 1939 we find that between July 1936 and June 1937 Delaware had 1 state forest camp, 4 mosquito control camps, 2 agricultural engineering camps and 1 military reservation camp for a total of 8 camps. For the same period between 1938 and 1939 Delaware only had 4 CCC camps, broken out as follows: 1 state forest camp, 1 biological survey camp, and 2 agricultural engineering camps.

Delaware’s overall specific project totals (cited in Merrill’s Forest Army) include:
Trees Planted: 274,000
Channel Cleaning/Flood Control: 12,682,774 square yards
Forest Stand Improvement: 692 acres
Mosquito Control: 52,874 acres

In the state forests of Delaware, CCC enrollees worked at establishing forest boundaries through surveying and marking, construction of truck trails, timber salvage, collection of seedlings, reducing fire hazards and reforestation. A section of forest called the Red Lion Tract was donated to the state of Delaware in 1930, but it wasn’t until the arrival of the CCC that work was begun to reforest the acreage with loblolly pine, shortleaf pine and Scotch pine.

The Annual Report of the Director of Emergency Conservation Work for fiscal year 1937 lists the monthly totals for enrollment in Delaware as follows:
July 1936: 485
August 1936: 437
September 1936: 336
October 1936: 405
November 1936: 387
December 1936: 369
January 1937: 421
February 1937: 408
March 1937: 319
April 1937: 334
May 1937: 285
June 1937: 254
These monthly totals reflect the number of young men who enrolled in the state of Delaware, not the total number of CCC boys working in the state of Deleware.

If we drill down a bit deeper into the state-by-state numbers in the 1937 Annual Report we’ll find that Delaware gained the following improvements between July of 1936 and June of 1937:
Vehicle bridges: 2
Sewer lines: 1,183 linear feet
Field planting/seeding: 33 acres
Fire hazard reduction (“Road & Trailside”): 6.7 miles
Fire hazard reduction (“Other”): 293.0 Acres
Mosquito control: 7,234 man days

The CCC Legacy maintains a camp listing and the entry for Delaware is reasonably short. The CCC Legacy list shows the following companies operated in Delaware on the dates indicated:
Co. 1224, November 1933 at Lewes, DE, Camp P-51
Co. 1224, April 1936 at Lewes, DE Camp MC-51
Co. 1226, November 1933 at Milford, DE, Camp P-51
Co. 1226, April 1936 at Milford, DE, Camp MC-52
Co. 1293, January 1936 at Georgetown, DE, Camp S-53
Co. 1295, July 1935 at Dover, DE, Camp MC-54
Co. 2213V, July, 1935 at Ft. DuPont, DE, Camp Army-1
Co. 3220, September 1935 at Georgetown, DE, Camp D-2/SCS-2
Co. 3221, October 1935 at Clayton, DE, Camp MC-55
Co. 3222, October 1935 at Wyoming, DE, Camp D-1
Co. 3269C, April 1938 at Dover, DE, Camp BS-1

The camp/company listings at the CCC Legacy website are simply representative and have been taken from the various camp strength listings for dates throughout the lifespan of the CCC.

The February 3, 1940 issue of Happy Days reported the death of a Delaware CCC enrollee from Company 3220, hit by an automobile. The microfilm image is poor; his first name was Dante and his last name looks like Corbyons.

The map image was taken from Stan Cohen's The Tree Army and highlights added to make it easier to read. To read the initial entry in the State-By-State series, click here.

The C.C.C. State-By-State: Connecticut

2011-02-14T05:47:00.000-08:00

Before we start, if you’re interested in going back to the initial post in the State-By-State series, click here. You’ll get some notion of the intent of this series and the background on where most of the statistical information is coming from.

Connecticut is a small state and as such the average number of total camps that worked there is small at just 13 according to Merrill in Roosevelt’s Forest Army. In 1937 the total stood at 17 camps, which sorted out thusly: 13 CCC camps were on state forests, 3 CCC camps were on private forests with a single CCC camp assigned to a state park. The existence of these camps meant more than 30,000 Connecticut men received work as a result of the CCC, including some 28,447 junior and veteran enrollees and 2,223 non-enrolled camp personnel.

The 1937 Annual Report of the Director of Emergency Conservation Work includes a state-by-state monthly breakdown of the numbers of enrollees by state. Connecticut’s enrollment for fiscal year 1937 shaped up like this:
July 1936: 3,842
August 1936: 3,571
September 1936: 2,433
October 1936: 3,122
November 1936: 2,891
December 1936: 2,718
January 1937: 3,090
February 1937: 2,907
March 1937: 1,920
April 1937: 2,378
May 1937: 2,143
June 1937: 1,887
Remember that these monthly totals reflect the number of men who enrolled in the CCC in Connecticut on a monthly basis, not the number of enrollees actually working in Connecticut month-to-month.

For the roughly $20.7 million spent on CCC work in Connecticut, the state gained 123 bridges of all types, 9 new lookout towers and over 1,000 acres of public camping and picnic grounds, among other improvements. Also according to Merrill, every CCC camp in Connecticut was named after a prominent person on either the state or national level.

There’s a very interesting point about the CCC buried in Merrill’s description of work in Connecticut. He notes that the Emergency Conservation Work (ECW) law did not make provision for construction of roads, the Forest Service referred to them as “truck trails.” Construction of such “truck trails” would be an important part of CCC work, not just in Connecticut but nationwide.

For a very recent CCC Resource Page post on the CCC at Natchaug, click here. Since that post was made, I’ve found out little about the CCC bridge over the Natchaug River.

Author Marty Podskoch has created a terrific website devoted to the CCC in Connecticut. To see a video of Mr. Podskoch giving a presentation on the CCC in Connecticut, click here.

Perry Merrill’s rundown of CCC work in Connecticut refers to the 1936 dam break above Hartford and the subsequent flooding. Merrill notes that “immediate help by CCC enrollees cleaned out 2,950 buildings and over 800 other structures.”

The 1936 flood was clearly a significant event in Connecticut history and there are ample resources online if you’re interested in more background. Connecticut History Online has a nifty few pages devoted to the flood of 1936 and the Hurricane of 1938. One photo listed with the 1936 flood information is particularly interesting and captivating because the caption purports it to be a photo of National Guardsmen deployed to help with the flood fight. For my money, those look an awful lot like CCC boys. Sadly, the page doesn’t make any reference to the response of the CCC, though there is a reference to the WPA in the section on suggested further reading.

Use the search feature at Connecticut History Online to find two images related to the CCC: an image of Camp Robinson at East Hartford taken in 1935 (who knows, maybe some of those boys helped with flood recovery the next year) and an image of a covered bridge that the CCC helped rebuild. (I’ve cited the copyright data for the photo of the flood response crew used here - above.)

Jump over to Connecticut’s Department of Environmental Protection website to track down a reference to the exact location of Camp Robinson in the Tunxis State Forest.

Connecticut has a museum dedicated to the CCC and to read a terrific blog post about this gem, click here. By all appearances this is a wonderful museum but sadly, I’m unable to find a website dedicated solely to the museum and its collection.

The book Civilian Conservation Corps: A Selectively Annotated Bibliography by Larry N. Sypolt offers up some tantalizing references to both primary and secondary source documents relating to the CCC nationwide and the entries for Connecticut are no exception. Dedicated and resourceful researchers will want to track down Austin Foster Hawes’ article entitled "The C.C.C. Makes Better Men and Forests in Connecticut," published by the State Forester in 1935. Also of interest: Mary E. Pasco’s article “Connecticut Improves Her Trout Streams: Civilian Conservation Corps Inaugurates Pioneer Work in Developing an Important Recreation Asset, published in the February 1934 issue of American Forests.

Connecticut is the smallest state thus far in our State-By-State rundown of work of the CCC across the United States. In looking at the map and searching for data and pictures, I’m reminded of a disparaging argument often made by revisionist historians regarding the CCC. It’s been argued – though less and less lately – that the CCC benefited the western United States to a greater degree than the eastern United States. I’ve always countered that, since most of the public domain is out west, most of the needed work was naturally in the western U.S. Furthermore, I’ve always pointed out that while more work may have been accomplished in the west (where it was most needed – see previous argument), a lot of the enrollees who performed that work out west came from cities, towns and villages in the eastern United States, consequently the allotments sent home to families didn’t end up in western communities but in eastern cities, towns and villages. You just have to look at a map of Connecticut with the ten CCC campsites highlighted to know that there couldn’t have been enough work to sustain a program like the CCC in Connecticut to the same degree it could be kept busy in Wyoming, Montana or California. One might argue that had it not been for the state forest system in the eastern U.S., the CCC would have accomplished little or no forestry work in this region. (In contrast, the vast tracts of USFS acreage in the west created infinite opportunities for the use of CCC labor.) Perhaps this theme is one we’ll revisit as we explore the work of the CCC in other eastern states.
For those of you keeping track, this is state number 7 in the State-By-State series. We'll look at the Delaware next. If you’d like to view a previous entry in the State-By-State series, I’ve added each new state name as a label so that it will be listed in the sidebar, alphabetically along with other labels used in this blog. As always, I look forward to input and hope you’ll post comments if you have something to share or feedback concerning how you found this blog or how you used the information posted here.

Image credits: As with all the State-by-State posts, the state map was taken from a larger map published in Stan Cohen's Tree Army. I simply highlighted the camp locations to make it easier to read. The photo of the flood fighting crew is from the Connecticut Historical Society and the photo of Camp White is from Cohen's Tree Army, where it is credited as a USFS photo.

The C.C.C. State-By-State: Colorado

2011-02-07T14:29:00.000-08:00

The history of the CCC in Colorado has a very personal feeling for me because it was in Colorado that my grandfather worked as a U.S. Forest Service foreman for the CCC at places like Waunita Hot Spring, Norwood, Delta, Gardner, Idaho Springs, San Isabel and Monument. It was an interest in learning more about grandpa’s work that led me to an interest in the larger history of the CCC.

So, when I quote Perry Merrill’s statistics regarding the work of the CCC in Colorado, there is a good degree of pride for me in knowing that grandpa helped stack up some of those numbers for the history books. Merrill notes in Roosevelt’s Forest Army that in June 1937 (for example) there were 38 CCC camps in Colorado divided among the technical services thus: 10 National Park Service camps, 10 Soil Conservation Service camps, 6 National Park Service camps, 5 State Park camps, 4 Division of Grazing camps and 3 Bureau of Reclamation camps. My grandpa was among 5,303 camp officers and supervisory staff to work in CCC camps in Colorado that year. Specific work accomplished in Colorado included 577 impounding and large diversion dams, 2,000 miles of truck trails and minor roads and insect pest control on over 3,000,000 acres.

The Annual Report of the Director of Emergency Conservation Work for fiscal year 1937 includes a chart of enrollment numbers divided by state of enrollment. The monthly enrollment numbers for Colorado between July 1936 and June 1937 look like this:
July 1936: 3,428
August 1936: 3,078
September 1936: 2,173
October 1936: 3,249
November 1936: 3,115
December 1936: 2,978
January 1937: 3,805
February 1937: 3,609
March 1937: 2,395
April 1937: 3,264
May 1937: 2,994
June 1937: 2,708

Naturally, forestry work figures prominently in the story of the CCC in Colorado, but other significant CCC projects in the Mile High State include work in Colorado National Monument, Mesa Verde National Monument and in Red Rocks Park outside Denver.

For an exploration of the work of the CCC in Colorado National Monument, visit their online Administrative History – specifically Chapter 4. The December 30, 1933 edition of Happy Days reported on the work of CCC enrollees to help in the recovery of 9 Civil Works Administration workers who were killed in a landslide at Colorado National Monument on December 12th. You’ll find a detailed account of the event in the 2008 book With Picks, Shovels and Hope: The CCC and its Legacy on the Colorado Plateau by Wayne K. Hinton and Elizabeth A. Green. Though no CCC enrollees were injured in this tragedy, it is chilling to know that only two days earlier, CCC enrollees had been pulled off that particular part of the project because they lacked the masks required to protect them from the rock dust.

For a previous CCC Resource Blog post regarding the book New Deal Days: The CCC At Mesa Verde, click here. The work of CCC enrollees at Mesa Verde ran the gamut from tough labor constructing park infrastructure to delicate work constructing dioramas for the museum exhibits.

The CCC Legacy held their annual reunion at Denver's Red Rocks Park in 2009. Much of the original camp remains, in part because it was quickly occupied by the military shortly after its stint as a CCC camp was complete. There is an impressive exhibit in the amphitheatre visitor center that includes terrific photos of the work done by enrollees from camp SP-13-C. The main exhibit panel reads in part:

Red Rocks Amphitheatre was the Civilian Conservation Corps’ largest and most ambitious project. A crew of about 300 young men at any one time lived in barracks near Morrison and worked on the theatre from 1936 to 1941, with help from the National Parks Service and Works Progress Administration. They laid 10 boxcar loads of cement and put down 90,000 square feet of flagstone quarried at Lyons, Colorado. The physical structure of the facility, as well as all the finished terracing and stonework, was built by hand, without the help of any machines.

On a personal level, I’ve explored more of the history of the CCC in Colorado than perhaps any other state with the possible exception of Arizona. Most of what I have learned has come as a result of searching for information on the camps where my grandfather, William “Bill” Rutherford worked as a U.S. Forest Service foreman. Along the way, I learned a lot of other stuff about what the CCC did in Colorado.

There is perhaps no greater primary source document on the CCC in Colorado than the book History of Civilian Conservation Corps in Colorado, Summer 1936, which is basically a District Annual or yearbook that gives details on all the CCC camps working in what were then called the Littleton District and the Grand Junction District. And while the book is a treasure to folks looking for details on CCC companies in Colorado, it’s also a boon for anyone looking for histories of CCC companies that were formed in or worked in the 8th Corps Area because it contains a list of individual company histories, giving their mobilization date and location and the places they worked. (Admittedly, there are discrepancies in some individual histories when they are compared to information gathered through detailed research, but if you’re seeking information on a company that worked in Colorado, you can’t do any better than starting here. I’ll post scans of those pages here at the bottom of this post for your reference.)

I’ll close this entry in the State-By-State series by sharing the text of a memorandum that was posted at the Red Rocks CCC camp outside Denver in 1937. In welcoming new and visiting enrollees, I don’t think Lieutenant Neely could have done any better in his choice of encouraging words; they’re a decent set of guidelines even today.

August 2, 1937
Company Memorandum:
For the information of all New Enrollees and Enrollees on detached service with this company, the following is issued for your guidance.
You are welcome.
1. The camp policy is, “A square deal to all.”
2. We have but few rules – observe them.
3. Your problem is our problem.
4. This is your camp; be proud of it.
5. Cooperation and getting along is our Motto.
6. Your health and comfort are our chief concern.
7. Recreation is considered necessary.
8. Your privacy and rights are respected.
9. Respect the privacy and rights of all hands.
10. Help us maintain clean Barracks, clean Grounds and a smart appearance.
11. The Camp Commander always has time for your “Problem”.

Signed: H.W. Neely, 1st Lt. USNR, Commanding

+ + +

Some 75 years later I believe Lieutenant Neely's philosophy lived in the form of many enrollees, camp staff, overhead and military officers and their daily dealings with their fellowmen and I'm proud to let the record show that my grandfather William Rutherford was one of them

(above) Foreman Bill Rutherford with his crew, Norwood, Colorado. (below) the CCC camp at Idaho Springs, Colorado.

(below)Individual Company histories from the 1936 Colorado District Annual:

(Sources: The Colorado state map is taken from Cohen's Tree Army. Images from Colorado National Monument and Mesa Verde are from the book With Picks, Shovels and Hope. The contemporary image of the camp at Morrison, Colorado and the text of Lt. Neely's letter are from the Red Rocks visitor center exhibit. The company histories were taken from the 1936 District Annual. The image of the Idaho Springs CCC camp is from the Colorado State Archives, item number 30255 FF-6.)

The C.C.C. State-By-State: California

2011-01-31T08:03:00.000-08:00

California, state number five in our state-by-state tour of the CCC, is another state that garnered a good deal of space in Perry Merrill’s book Roosevelt’s Forest Army, originally published in 1981. California had a lot of CCC camps. Merrill reports that in 1937 for example, there were 101 camps in California, divided as follows between the various technical services: 50 National Forest camps, 15 State Park camps, 11 National Park camps, 10 Private Forest camps, 9 Soil Conservation Service camps, 3 Division of Grazing camps, 1 Bureau of Reclamation camp and 1 Military Reservation camp.
In nearly a decade of work, the CCC accounted for some $25.6 million in allotments to dependents and for that money, enrollees built 306 lookout towers and houses, strung 8,704 miles of telephone wire, built over a million miles of truck trails and minor roads and performed tree and plant disease control on nearly 800,000 acres of land, among countless other projects. (Again, these figures are cited in detail in Merrill’s Roosevelt’s Forest Army.)

The 1937 Annual Report of the Director of Emergency Conservation Work reported the monthly enrollment numbers for California for fiscal year 1937 as follows:

July 1936: 10,150
August 1936: 9,048
September 1936: 7,961
October 1936: 8, 565
November 1936: 7,966
December 1936: 7,474
January 1937: 8,759
February 1937: 8,225
March 1937: 6,118
April 1937: 7,826
May 1937: 6,951
June 1937: 6,086

These figures represent the monthly enrollment totals for California, not the total number of enrollees working in California.

California is located in U.S. Forest Service Region 9 and the Forest Service’s history of the Civilian Conservation Corps includes an entire section devoted to work in California, which you can access here.

Reportedly, the largest single undertaking by the CCC in California is the Ponderosa Way, an 800-mile long firebreak and truck trail cut through the Stanislas National Forest. The Forest Service history includes reference to this massive project:

The project, first proposed by the regional forester in 1929, was made possible only by the extra labor provided by the CCC. On July 21, 1933, Show told national forest supervisors in the proposed Ponderosa Way areas about his plan to construct “a real fire line with a truck trail along it down the length of the Sierra and the north Coast Range located near the lower edge of the present timber lands.

In 2009 the Forest Service sponsored a Passport in Time project that put volunteers in the Ponderosa Way region with metal detectors to see what sorts of artifacts they could unearth. The results of the survey and recovery of artifacts might be characterized as a mixed bag. A brief write up by a USFS archaeologist, Stacy Lundgren states in part: “While some of the artifacts had little to do with the Ponderosa way and more to do with 1950s-era household trash, enough items were located to tell us we were on the right track. Historic maps and aerial photographs provided the clues to where to look and our volunteers provided the enthusiasm and dedication in the looking itself. This project was just the beginning in the planned documentation and interpretation of this significant resource.”

The history of fire suppression by the CCC is certainly nothing new and California had its share of fires to be fought, both forest fires and structure fires. I’m blessed in that I have corresponded with lots of former CCC enrollees over the years and one gentleman who’s been a font of information pertaining to CCC camps throughout California is Gordon Anderson. Gordie wrote to me some time back regarding a particular fire that occurred while he was assigned to the CCC camp at Big Basin, California. Here it is in his words:
While I was stationed in Big Basin, I was attached to the Forestry Fire Station in Felton, California just down the road – car fires, structure fires, and one forest fire – the Mountain Charlie Gulch Fire. That one was arson, started by an old guy riding a mule up the canyon and throwing lighted newspaper into the brush as he rode. He was spotted by a forestry plane, so when he rode out at the head end of the canyon, we were waiting for him. We took him back to the fire camp, gave him a drink, food, and a shovel and put him to work on the line – no rest, no relief. After two straight shifts of being booted onto his feet whenever he sat down, and full exposure to the fun of fighting fire, we turned him over to the sheriff, who wasn’t much more friendly than we were!

Gordie also recounted many humorous incidents that occurred during his time in the CCC in California. One incident involved an effort to establish a new pit latrine for the camp. Gordie wrote:
Dynamite figured in several of our little adventures – we used a lot of it. One of the messier ones: Our old privy had been there for several years and was plenty full, so the camp crew dug a new one just up the hill from the old one. The soil in those hills isn’t very absorbent, so the foreman handed a couple of the new boys a case of 40% and told them to load and shoot the hole to open it up for drainage, so they did and used the entire case! Unfortunately, they didn’t listen too closely to what he said and they loaded the wrong hole – the old one! When that blast when off it spread a thick layer of crap over the whole camp and believe me, it didn’t smell like no rose garden either! It still had a fairly strong perfume when we transferred out of there to Empire Meadows in Yosemite, several months later.

Gordie also commented on the impact the CCC experience had on him personally: I am sure that the experience in the CCC helped me a lot in later years; taught me how to obey orders (even if I thought they were stupid) and surely helped me to learn from my experiences. For instance, I learned not to sleep under a truck. On the Red Hill Fire, we were relieved, fed and I grabbed a blanket to get some rest. I flaked out under a truck and corked off and when I awoke, the truck was gone – never heard a thing. Fortunately, the Lord was with me that time. My brain certainly wasn’t!

The website of the Conference of California Historical Societies includes a brief nod to the work of the CCC.

There’s a very nice series of web pages devoted to the work of the CCC in California, over at the California State Parks website. The site has multiple components and links to photos, brochures and other items of interest. There is also a list of featured state parks that includes La Purisima Mission, Big Basin Redwoods and Mount Diablo.

The true total number of enrollees killed while in the CCC may never be known. The CCC newspaper Happy Days reported some of the fatalities, but certainly not all of them. A current ongoing project of mine has been to gather data on CCC fatalities so I’ll close with a tidbit or two regarding CCC fatalities in California. One of the first CCC fatalities in California, as reported in Happy Days, was that of Cecil Loomis who was evidently killed when a CCC truck collided with an automobile. Cecil’s death was reported in the February 3rd edition of Happy Days. And it was just a couple months later that an enrollee by the name of Jones was crushed when the cement mixer he was helping move slipped off the truck, crushing young Jones to death

If you’d like to get some background on the purpose and scope of the State-By-State series, you can read the initial entry by clicking here.

As with all the posts in the State-By-State series the camp location map was taken from Cohen's Tree Army and the camp locations highlighted. All photos are from the USFS and appear in Cohen's Tree Army except the image of the snow covered CCC camp, which is an image of the Big Basin CCC camp provided by Gordie Anderson.

The C.C.C. State-By-State: Arkansas

2011-01-24T16:26:00.000-08:00

In Roosevelt’s Forest Army, Perry Merrill devotes a good deal of space to a detailed accounting of CCC work in Arkansas (nearly 2 and a half pages, whereas Arizona garners barely a half page). We’ll find as we progress through all the states and territories that some places simply have better documentation of their CCC work and perhaps this is what Mr. Merrill encountered when he created his entry for Arkansas.

Let’s start with some simple statistics from Roosevelt’s Forest Army. An astounding 62, 882 individuals from all states worked in the CCC in Arkansas between 1933 and 1942. In that time, the CCC built 4,956 bridges of varying types, strung 6,956 miles of telephone line, built 82,190 check dams and made forest stand improvements to some 496,000 acres of land.

The 1937 Annual Report of the Director of Emergency Conservation Work includes a state-by-state monthly breakdown of the numbers of enrollees from each state. Enrollment in Arkansas for fiscal year 1937 stacked up like this:

July 1936: 8,539
August 1936: 8,144
September 1936: 6,226
October 1936: 11,049
November 1936: 10,681
December 1936: 10,307
January 1937: 10,291
February 1937: 9,976
March 1937: 7,471
April 1937: 10,329
May 1937: 9,931
June 1937: 9,295

(Keep in mind that these figures represent the number of enrollees who enrolled in Arkansas, not the number of enrollees actually working in Arkansas on a month-to-month basis. The title of the table cited is "Total enrolled strength of the Civilian Conservation Corps by States in which enrolled...")

Merrill notes that the average number of CCC camps in Arkansas was 37 and at one time 64 camps, employing 13,000 men were in operation in the state. (The map illustration is a detail from Stan Cohen’s book The Tree Army. The map from which this was taken was a 1938 illustration of CCC camps nationwide. I’ve isolated Arkansas and highlighted the camps with colored blocks to make it easier to read. Remember that this map doesn’t show every camp that operated in the state of Arkansas between 1933 and 1942; better to look at this as a snapshot of camp locations in 1938.)

Among the noteworthy accomplishments specifically cited by Merrill: The construction of 80 forest lookouts statewide, a three thousand seat amphitheatre in Crowley’s Ridge State Park, soil conservation work statewide, including the planting of sod, construction of check dams and planting of trees. At the White River Migratory Waterfowl Refuge, CCC enrollees planted grasses to provide food for the birds.

There is a nice history of the CCC in Arkansas entitled (appropriately) "The Civilian Conservation Corps in Arkansas, 1933-1942 available on line. Written by Sandra Taylor Smith, this piece, though brief, is surprising in its detail and even includes a nice bibliography. You’ll note that Perry Merrill’s book is listed in the bibliography, but strangely, there is no reference to John Salmond’s landmark study from the 1960s.

Smith notes that Arkansas was in the Seventh Corps Area with the Corps headquarters located in Omaha, Nebraska. Smith also points out that enrollees were sent to what was then Camp Pike in North Little Rock before being given their permanent camp assignment. Smith’s article is a useful piece of CCC research and an asset to anyone wishing to gain an insight into the work of the CCC in Arkansas.

One sad aspect of the CCC program that we’ll encounter as we progress through this state-by-state history is the incidence of racism in the selection, enrollment and deployment of minority groups, especially blacks and seemingly especially in the southern states. One could argue that the CCC’s only true failing was in the area of racial integration and equality. Though the legislation that created the Civilian Conservation Corps included language prohibiting discrimination based on race, problems cropped up almost immediately during the initial selection process in the individual states. For an excellent account of these initial problems and indeed a valuable discussion of the problem of racism in the CCC, see John Salmond’s groundbreaking work from the 1960s, The Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933-1942: A New Deal Case Study. Of particular interest with respect to racial policy in the CCC is Salmond’s discussion in Chapter 5, “The Selection of Negroes, 1933-1937” (A copy of Salmond’s important work is now available online and can be viewed here.)

As for the issue of racism in Arkansas’s selection process, Salmond wrote:
Similarly (compared to Georgia), after investigating an NAACP complaint of discrimination in Arkansas, Persons (Frank W. Persons, director of CCC selection nationwide) again threatened to withhold quotas. The state’s indignant relief director, William A. Rooksbery, unequivocally denied the charge that no Negroes had been selected. No less than three had in fact been enrolled, he protested, but Persons was unimpressed, and told him so. The chastened state official promised to induct more within the following few weeks.

In a region of the country where blacks made up as much as 50 percent of the total population, the lack of recruitment of blacks for work in southern CCC camps is disgusting today, but must be viewed in light of the overriding system of prejudice at the time. Further, cases of racism were not confined to the southern states by any means and as we progress through the state-by-state histories we’ll see that camps were segregated by race nationwide and that all-black camps ran into local opposition in such seemingly progressive regions as California.
Salmond goes on to point out that, beyond the initial difficulty of actually getting young blacks selected and enrolled into the CCC, Arkansas citizens “accepted with equanimity many Negro camps.” But in the end, CCC Director Robert Fechner never forced the issue and, if local protests erupted due to the all-black nature of a CCC camp, he would order the camp closed or moved onto an Army reservation, for, as Salmond writes in Fechner’s own words, he was “a Southerner by birth and raising” and thus he, “clearly understood the Negro problem.”

For the Forest Service perspective on CCC work in Arkansas, be sure to visit their online history The Forest Service and the Civilian Conservation Corps.

The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture also has terrific information about the work of the CCC in Arkansas, including some pictures!

Larry Sypolt’s invaluable book Civilian Conservation Corps: A Selectively Annotated Bibliography lists a couple of resources directly related to the CCC in Arkansas under the section of the book devoted to the 7th Corps Area. If you can’t find these articles or books on line, you might try your local librarian (For example, the Sandra Taylor Smith article referenced above, is listed in Sypolt and is available on line. Other sources may not be so easy to find, but will likely prove worth the effort if your project relates directly to the work of the CCC in Arkansas.) Among the Arkansas-related sources listed in Sypolt:
“Two Decades of State Forestry in Arkansas,” by Fred H. Long, published in Arkansas Historical Quarterly 24:3 (1965).
“A Brief History of Camp Sage: CCC Camp P-76, Stella, Arkansas,” by Burney B. McClurkan, Arkansas State Highway and Transportation Department, 1994.
“The Civilian Conservation Corps in Arkansas: 1933-1934,” self-published by Charles A. O’Dell in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1995.

We’ll close this entry in the State-By-State series with a brief personal testimonial from an enrollee in Arkansas. In 1934 the American Forestry Association published a nifty little book entitled Youth Rebuilds: Stories from the C.C.C. The book is a series of stories or testimonials from CCC enrollees across the United States and it offers an interesting glimpse of the program when it was still in its earliest, formative years. Included in the book is a piece written by Robert R. Ross, an enrollee in Company 741 at Crystal Springs, Arkansas. (The first CCC camp to be established in Arkansas according to the Sandra Taylor Smith article previously noted.) Young Robert wrote, in part:

Every day in the woods I come across something that can be applied to the text of some book I have read. Thus, by observation and study, I am fitting myself for my chosen work. I now understand fully that phrase – “fresh start in a healthful occupation in the open.” The work and sunshine have been beneficial to my health beyond all measure. I have gained in weight and strength. I have felt better than at any time in the last few years. Maybe it is that full feeling I experience three times each day!

If you’d like to get some background on the purpose and scope of this series, you can read the initial entry in the State-By-State series by clicking here.

The photo is a detail from a larger image of Camp Nodak near Plainview Arkansas. The photo is dated November 1933. The 1934 Christmas menu from the Crowley’s Ridge camp lists the enrollees and Local Experienced Men at the camp and is from my document files.

The C.C.C. State-By-State: Arizona

2011-01-18T05:53:00.000-08:00

This marks the third state entry in the State-By-State series. If you’d like to get some background on the purpose and scope of this series, you can read the initial entry in the State-By-State series by clicking here. Over time, there may be a need to go back and revise the individual state entries in order to add new information or correct the information that is already posted, so if you’re interested in a particular state, be sure to check back from time to time to see if there are any updates.

Arizona is another state for which there has been some worthwhile and very useful CCC research done in the not too distant past, most notably Robert Moore’s book on the CCC in Arizona’s Rim Country, which we’ll touch on in a moment.

First, let’s start with some statistics from Perry Merrill’s book Roosevelt’s Forest Army. Merrill notes that the number of individual camps in the state of Arizona numbered about fifty and that the aggregate number of Arizona men who were given work as a result of the CCC stands at 41,363. Between 1933 and 1942, CCC enrollees in Arizona strung 3,559 miles of telephone lines, built 512,093 erosion control check dams and planted an astounding 7.4 million trees! Merrill also briefly notes the work of the CCC in Phoenix, Tucson, Colossal Cave and the Hualpai Mountains though an error in the text makes it seem that the Hualapai Mountains are in or near Tucson, when in fact they are in the opposite corner of the state, near Kingman, Arizona. (You’ll also note the various spellings of “Hualapai”.)

For many years and importantly during the Great Depression, Arizona had a wonderful advocate in the person of Senator Carl Hayden. To read about the creation of the CCC camps at Phoenix South Mountain Park – including Senator Hayden’s role in the effort – click on my previous post about the CCC at South Mountain Park. It is safe to say that were it not for Senator Hayden, Phoenix would not have gotten at least two of the CCC camps that it was allotted during the 1930s. One can only imagine what other help Senator Hayden provided to insure the success of the CCC in Arizona.

The CCC also worked at Papago Park, another park located in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Lesser known though vaguely referenced in Roosevelt’s Forest Army, is the work at Hualapai Mountain Park near Kingman, Arizona. You can see an all too brief history of the park by clicking on the Mojave County Parks website here. The 1936 Phoenix District Annual reported that at that time Company 1837 was working at camp SP-8-A in the “Hualpai” Mountains. Prior to arriving near Kingman, Company 1837 worked at SP-1-A in Randolph Park near Tucson and then camp SP-6-A in Tucson’s Rincon Mountains. (The black and white photos of SP-8-A in this post are from that 1936 District Annual.) Given the fact that the place owes its existence to the CCC, more could be done to document and report on the work of the CCC at Hualapai Mountain Park.

A thumbnail sketch of the places where the CCC worked in Arizona would look something like this:
Multiple improvements like roads, ramadas and lookout structures at both Phoenix South Mountain Park and Papago Park, infrastructure and aesthetic improvements at Grand Canyon, both on the North and South Rims and down in the Canyon. Additionally, upgrades and improvements to the irrigation system in the metro Phoenix area and in the area around Yuma, erosion control work throughout the state, significant improvements at Colossal Cave and Chiricahua National Monument in southeastern Arizona, immeasurable improvements to the forest lands across the state and work at Petrified Forest.

Two books come to mind when discussing the work of the CCC in Arizona: Louis Lester Purvis’ wonderful book The Ace in the Hole: A Brief History of Company 818 of the Civilian Conservation Corps (1989) and Robert J. Moore’s more recent, more scholarly book The Civilian Conservation Corps in Arizona’s Rim Country: Working in the Woods (2006). Purvis’ book on the work of the CCC at Grand Canyon stands head and shoulders above other Arizona-related works because it is the only published text that is a personal narrative penned by a CCC veteran who worked in Arizona and I’ve been remiss in not posting a detailed review of it here or at the Forest Army blog. To read an earlier posting I did for Moore’s book, over at Forest Army click here. Bottom line: If you’re doing research on the work of the CCC in Arizona, these two books will be an important resource for you.

Other equally important if less in-depth coverage of CCC work in Arizona can be found in Sharon Hunt’s Images of America book entitled Vail and Colossal Cave Mountain Park and Donna and George Hartz’s Images of America book entitled The Phoenix Area’s Parks and Preserves, both published by Arcadia Publishing. (Any time to encounter an Arcadia Publishing Images of America title, be sure to scan through it for images and references to the CCC – you’ll be surprised at how often these titles include references to work done by the Forest Army during the 1930s.) Elsewhere, you’ll find references to the CCC in Letters from Wupatki by Courtney Reeder Jones and Bradford Luckingham’s Phoenix: A History of a Southwestern Metropolis. (Admittedly, the single reference to the CCC in Luckingham is a bit thin but the book also provides useful insight into life in Phoenix during the New Deal era.)

To view all of the Arizona-related posts over at the Forest Army blog, click here.

Interest in the work of the CCC in Arizona remains strong and the Arizona State Archives now maintains a set of all available issues of the CCC newspaper Happy Days on microfilm.

The map for this post (as with all maps used thus far) comes from a map of camp locations published in Cohen’s The Tree Army. The color photo of the CCC-built cabin comes from the Mojave County Parks website and the black and white images of the CCC camp at Hualpai Mountain Park are from the 1936 Phoenix District Annual.

The C.C.C. State-By-State: Alaska

2011-01-09T14:35:00.000-08:00

The existing CCC documentation for the Alaska Territory seems nearly as remote as that largest of the 50 United States. Alaska had not yet entered the Union as a full-fledged state but was home to important CCC work nevertheless.

For some reason Alaska does not merit its own state-by-state summary in the back of Perry Merrill’s book Roosevelt’s Forest Army. However there is a two-paragraph reference to the Territory of Alaska in the early sections of the book. Merrill notes that Alaska did not have CCC camps per se, but instead enrollees remained in their own homes in their own communities and the work was largely seasonal, building truck trails, improving campground infrastructure and cruising timber. Merrill reports that in 1935 there were just 325 enrollees working in the territory and that all were middle-aged men.

A far more detailed account of the work of the CCC in Alaska can be found in the U.S. Forest Service’s online history The Forest Service and the Civilian Conservation Corps. The official history points out that in the Alaskan Territory, the CCC did not operate under the Army’s corps system but rather under the direct jurisdiction of the regional Forest Service office. The official history also contradicts Merrill’s reference to the non-camp set up of the CCC in Alaska, stating that the enrollees were stationed in “small, decentralized camps” in the existing national forests.

An especially interesting aspect of the CCC in Alaska is the involvement of the territory’s native peoples, including its Eskimo population, who were brought into the program in 1937 but dropped from participation just two years later over fears that the program was causing “too much dependence on the white man’s way.” One somewhat unusual project involving native peoples was the herding and butchering of reindeer and the harvesting of their brains for export.

The organizational structure of the CCC in Alaska was somewhat similar to the way in which the Indian Emergency Conservation Work program was organized in the Lower 48. Men were generally older in the Alaskan CCC program, they lived closer to home and sometimes in their own homes (compare this description to that given in Merrill’s brief summary) and they were allowed to keep more of their monthly pay than the typical CCC enrollee.

The Forest Service history also notes that the CCC contributed to national defense work in Alaska through their work helping build Annette Army Airfield as well as other major airfields. To see a brief history of Annette Island and its airfield, click here.

You’ll see a nice history of the CCC’s work at the Tongass National Forest website.

You might also be interested the book Alaska at War 1941-1945: The Forgotten War Remembered, edited by Fern Chandonnet. Alaska at War includes a chapter on the work of the CCC in Alaska.

Regarding the images: All the pictures in this post were taken from Cohen's Tree Army. The surveyor with the plane table is working in Knudson Cove and the image is a USFS image. The other image shows CCC enrollees working on Annette Island and is cited by Cohen as a National Archives image.

The C.C.C. State-By-State: Alabama

2011-01-03T07:45:00.000-08:00

To read the initial entry in the State-By-State series, click here.

The first entry in the State-By-State series is relatively easy, given that Robert Pasquill, Jr. did a state-specific study in 2008. Pasquill’s The Civilian Conservation Corps in Alabama, 1933-1942: A Great and Lasting Good is an asset for its appendices alone. Add in the fact that the book includes a disk of interviews with CCC enrollees and you’ve got an irresistible package for CCC buffs or anyone seeking information on Alabama CCC projects.

According to statistics cited by Merrill in Roosevelt’s Forest Army, the CCC in Alabama strung more than 1,800 miles of telephone lines, built over 3,000 miles of roads and truck trails, planted just over 60,000 trees and built 659 bridges of various types. Merrill reports that in 1937 the aggregate number of Alabama men employed by the CCC was 66,837 and that an estimated $16.4 million in allotments was made to dependents by enrollees.

Not surprisingly, Pasquill cites Merrill’s work in his summary of CCC accomplishments in Alabama. Pasquill also quotes at length from an article that ran in the July 16, 1942 edition of the Moulton Advertiser, just a couple weeks after the CCC was officially disbanded. I won’t run the entire entry here, but will pass along this small bit from the article, entitled “A Great and Lasting Good Accomplished by the CCC”:

[During the lifetime of the CCC] “CCC camps under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Forest Service and State Forester advanced the cause of forest conservation in Alabama by at least a generation both in the national forests and on state and privately owned land.”

As we’ll see with every state, Alabama’s CCC camps were like small towns and many camps had camp newspapers that sported names like Bull Thrower, Camp Jester, Mess Kit and See See See. Pasquill’s book includes a helpful list of camp newspapers in the appendices.

Pasquill’s list of Alabama CCC camps breaks them out under technical services: U.S. Forest Service, Soil Conservation Service, Tennessee Valley Authority, State Parks, Private Forest Projects and State Forest Projects. Additionally, while Alabama hosted a number of colored CCC companies and even some CCC companies comprised of black World War I veterans, Pasquill’s text isn’t particularly user-friendly for researchers looking for specific references to all-black CCC camps or CCC companies; there are no index listings to direct the reader to topics related to “race,” or “racism” or ‘African-American enrollees,” for example. On the other hand, a diligent reader or researcher will be able to cross-reference the camp listing against the individual camp histories to get an idea of where the all-black CCC companies worked in Alabama.

One could argue that the CCC’s only true failing was in the area of racial integration and equality; indeed the incidence of racism in the selection, enrollment and deployment of minority groups, especially blacks and seemingly especially in the southern states, is the one sad aspect of the CCC program that we’ll encounter consistently as we progress through this state-by-state history. Though the legislation that created the Civilian Conservation Corps included language prohibiting discrimination based on race, problems cropped up almost immediately during the initial selection process in the individual states. For an excellent account of these initial problems and indeed a valuable discussion of the problem of racism in the CCC, see John Salmond’s groundbreaking work from the 1960s, The Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933-1942: A New Deal Case Study. Of particular interest with respect to racial policy in the CCC is Salmond’s discussion in Chapter 5, “The Selection of Negroes, 1933-1937” (A copy of Salmond’s important work is now available online and can be viewed here.)

So, despite this very minor shortcoming, let there be no doubt that if you’re looking for information on the CCC in Alabama, Robert Pasquill’s book is where you need to start and it may indeed contain everything you need, but in the event you’re still looking, here are some links to other sites with information on the CCC in Alabama:

Click here for a history of CCC work in Dekalb County, Alabama.

For a look at the U.S. Forest Service history of CCC work in Region 8, which included Alabama, click here.

Image Credits: State Map is an edited detail from Cohen's The Tree Army. The photo is also from Cohen and is a view of the recreation room of Camp P-60, home to Veteran's Company 2420, Chatom, Alabama.

Next stop on the State-By-State tour: (The Territory of) Alaska.

Introduction: The CCC State By State

2010-12-27T14:36:00.000-08:00

In an effort to create better content here and at the Forest Army blog, I’m creating a new feature that I’ll tentatively title The CCC State By State. Like a lot of “bright ideas” before, this one is not fully formed, but even now I feel that some initial explanation is needed.

The CCC State By State entries will cover the work of the CCC in each of the United States and the U.S. Territories, starting with Alabama and hopefully finishing up with Wyoming. Ideally, I’d have at least one State By State entry done each week during the coming year but likely as not, the entries will spill over into 2012 as well.

In each entry I will include bibliographic data to indicate from where the information has been taken, but in each case the entries will likely develop around data from Perry H. Merrill’s terrific book “Roosevelt’s Forest Army: A History of the Civilian Conservation Corps” first published in 1981 and still available online. Additionally, I’ll try to refer to prominent works related to each individual state, as I know there are a number of books that detail work in specific states and locales. I’ll also try to add links to websites that contain useful information on CCC work in specific states. I anticipate that photos will come from Stan Cohen’s pictorial history of the CCC, The Tree Army and in each case I’ll cite the photo source as well as the original source if that information is listed in my source material (for example a photo from Cohen’s book would also include a citation if it came from a U.S. Forest Service collection, thus my cite would indicate both sources.)

As each individual state entry is completed and posted, I’ll add the name of that state as a label so that visitors here can simply click on the state name to be directed quickly to their state of interest. I’ll also add a bookmark for State By State so that folks can pull up a list of all the blog posts in the series. Finally, I’ll include a link to this first post in the series within each subsequent state post to refer folks back to my original premise and to hopefully keep me on the straight and narrow from an editorial standpoint. As always, I'll rely on input from visitors, too. If I've missed something, please post a comment.

Next post in the series: Alabama.

Source:
Map from Cohen's The Tree Army, A Pictorial History of the CCC, 1933-1942

An Invitation from the Past: Natchaug River Bridge, Connecticut

2010-12-13T09:13:00.000-08:00

Thumbing through a three-ring binder from the bookshelf, I came across a neatly folded invitation to a 1934 bridge dedication. In late May 1934, the Honorable Andrew T. J. Clark in Brooklyn, Connecticut was invited to the planned opening of a bridge built across the Natchaug River by the boys of Camp Fernow.

The invitation lists the governor of Connecticut along with the commander of the 3rd Corps area and the director of the US ECW, Robert Fechner as guests of honor. Today I wonder if these esteemed gentlemen did in fact attend the ceremony and I wonder if Mr. Andrew Clark made the journey.

A Google search for images of the bridge yielded nothing. The bridge does receive mention on a Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection website and I’m sad to read that the bridge is no longer deemed safe for vehicle or pedestrian traffic. Perhaps it crumbles away in plain sight of visitors to the Natchaug State Forest. My hope is that the bridge is at least marked with interpretive signage.

Elsewhere on the web you’ll find a personal remembrance of life at Camp Fernow posted at the CCC Legacy website. Former CCC enrollee Bill Beckett writes fondly of his time helping construct the bridge using the simple tools and equipment available at the time – unlike today when cranes and heavy equipment are the norm. He recollects with pride that the bridge is still in use as of his writing in 2009. One has to wonder what has taken place in the last year or so to make forest officials decide to close the bridge. I also wonder if Mr. Beckett was present at the dedication ceremony, standing proudly with his fellow enrollees that day in June 1934. Most certainly there were speeches and, as the invitation states, a tour of the CCC camp. Maybe a lunch was served to guests and visiting dignitaries. It’s important to remember the useful part these dedications and open houses played in the life of the Civilian Conservation Corps. Camps were often filled with young men from out of state and in an era when older residents may have rarely traveled outside their own county, having “outsiders” was a potential disruption that could cause friction if not handled with tact and diplomacy. Thanksgiving and Christmas parties, dances and dedications open to the public were all means of making local residents feel welcome and a useful tool to show folks the value of CCC work in their area. The ceremony to mark the opening of the Natchaug River bridge was no doubt just such an event.

When we think of fall colors, we often think of places like Connecticut and in our mind’s eye there is often a stone bridge mantled in a shroud of red and gold fallen leaves, a crisp cold forest stream coursing below, its waters soon to be frozen as winter nudges closer. That is what I’m thinking of now as I draw the understandable parallel between the lifespan of this stone bridge and the lifespan of the men who built it. They are in the autumn of their years, all of them, and it will fall to those of us who remain to preserve their important work in the form of stone bridges like the one across the Natchaug River on Fernow Road in a scenic corner of Connecticut.

What We've Learned About What They Learned: A Guest Post

2010-09-20T20:15:00.000-07:00

I'm pleased, and honored, to be able to post the following piece of new CCC scholarship. My thanks to Bob Audretsch who continues to be a friend to the CCC and it's legacy.

Illiteracy in the CCC

A Guest Post by Robert W. Audretsch

Throughout the over nine year life of the CCC illiteracy was always a national and local concern. In the final report of the CCC published in 1942 Director J. J. McEntee stated that the average enrollee “had completed approximately 8 grades of school but it had taken from 10 to 11 years instead of the customary 8….” However a significant number of enrollees were illiterate. The CCC, always the pragmatic agency, defined literacy as “the ability to write an ordinary letter and read a newspaper with comprehension.”

Perry Merrill’s Roosevelt’s Forest Army; A History of the Civilian Conservation Corps states “…40,000 illiterates learned to read and write.” (page vii) This number seems to have been accepted today but it is my contention that this number is far too low. Happy Days, the unofficial CCC weekly newspaper, stated in its September 5, 1936 issue (page 8) that 40,000 enrollees had attained literacy by mid-year 1936. Not all of the Annual Reports of the CCC Director stated the literacy numbers but the reports of June 30, 1939, 1940 and 1941 listed literacy attained as, respectively: 8,936, 9,000 and 11,697. So one might not be blamed for being skeptical of the 40,000 number listed in the Merrill book. What was the final number of men attaining literacy by the program’s end on June 30, 1942? McEntee’s mimeographed Federal Security Agency Final Report of the Director of the Civilian Conservation Corps (page 112) has a very clear answer: “approximately 110,000 enrollees.”

From the very beginning in 1933 illiterate enrollees were tutored, sometimes in class but sometimes individually, to be able to master basic reading and writing. In one company men who could not sign their name were individually tutored to learn their signature. They could not get paid until they could sign their name! According to the November 27, 1937 issue of Happy Days (page 4) enrollee Carter Lane of Company 5476 (Litchfield, CA) learned to read and write in 14 days! What an astounding fact. But no less wonderful than those over one hundred thousand men who also attained literacy while in the CCC!

The photos in this post were taken from the 1940 Pictorial Review of CCC Company 1130, Camden, Maine, in the First Corps Area.

More Arizona CCC News!

2010-04-18T20:23:00.000-07:00

The acclaimed National Park Service exhibit It Saved My Life, which originated at Grand Canyon National Park in 2008, is finding continued life with the upcoming opening of the exhibit in Tucson, Arizona.

Following a wonderful run in historic Kolb Studio on Grand Canyon’s South Rim, the exhibit was loaned to the City of Phoenix and was set up at Phoenix South Mountain Park. The opening of the exhibit there coincided with the dedication of a CCC Worker Statue at the park.

Now comes word that the exhibit will open for public visitation at the Arizona History museum in Tucson starting Friday, May 14th. There is no immediate word on how long the exhibit will run however the exhibit title has been revised to incorporate the local story of CCC work in Southern Arizona as well. The Arizona Historical Society and the Arizona Humanities Council have teamed up to make the exhibit possible. The announcement for the exhibit opening indicates that on the evening of May 14th visitors will have an opportunity to view the exhibit meet CCC enrollees and enjoy refreshments. On Saturday, May 22nd the museum will host a Family Program during which visitors will be able to go on a family-friendly tour, listen to a fireside chat with FDR and participate in hands-on activities.

It is a tribute to the hard work of folks with the National Park Service that this exhibit continues to enrich people’s lives even after its terrific run at Grand Canyon. It is a further tribute to hard working folks at the local level in Phoenix and Tucson who’ve worked to extend the usefulness of this wonderful exhibit so that it continues to teach people about the work of the CCC in Arizona.

Big News for CCC Researchers in Arizona!

2010-03-24T20:12:00.000-07:00

In the coming weeks, Chapter 44 of the Civilian Conservation Corps Legacy will donate to the Arizona State Archives a complete set of the available Happy Days newspapers on microfilm!

The film contains issues of Happy Days from 1933 to 1940 and cost just over $500, purchased from the National Archives and Records Administration. The acquisition of this film and its donation to a local repository has huge implications for anyone wanting to do CCC research in Arizona, but as important as it is, the microfilm is only a tool and without a proper finding aid or index, this volume of material is little more than a novelty and a place for researchers to scan randomly with the hope that they will stumble onto information that is useful to their project.

Enter Bob Audretsch, U. S. Park Service retired. Bob has very kindly given his time and talent, devoting hours to scanning the entire six-roll collection to catalog and index every story in the Happy Days film with an Arizona connection. Bob estimates that the work of indexing the Arizona Happy Days stories took six months, working an average of 4 hours a day. Bob’s not new to this, having already indexed CCC stories in two Flagstaff papers and one Williams paper from the 1930s. And, amazingly enough, Bob’s not done; he’s begun work indexing papers from Winslow, Holbrook, Springerville, Camp Verde, Kingman, Prescott and Phoenix. When Bob’s done, much of the heavy lifting will have been accomplished for any researcher hoping to glean CCC stories from Arizona’s major newspapers from the New Deal era.

So, in this project we have the beneficial intertwining of a CCC Legacy chapter with the interest and hard work of a local CCC author and researcher. Chapter 44 has provided the funding for the purchase of the Happy Days on microfilm and Bob Audretsch has provided the sweat of his brow to produce an index that will make the microfilm that much more useful to Arizona researchers.

I’ll provide an update here, once the microfilm is handed over to the Arizona State Archives.

New Deal Days: The CCC at Mesa Verde

2009-12-11T20:16:00.000-08:00

New Deal Days: The CCC at Mesa Verde by Ronald C. Brown and Duane A. Smith, published by the Durango Herald Small Press in 2006 as part of the Mesa Verde Centennial Series, is a tidy account of the accomplishments of the CCC at Mesa Verde in southwestern Colorado.

Although the book is somewhat short, the author’s have wisely chosen to keep their discussion and analysis of the creation and general history of the CCC relatively brief, thus giving over more space for the terrific story of the CCC history at Mesa Verde National Park. After all, most folks who consider picking up a book of this sort will likely have come to understand the situation in the United States in 1933 when the first CCC enrollees arrived at Prater Canyon to occupy a camp that can only accurately be characterized as “rustic.”

Brown and Smith provide wonderful snippets of camp life, drawing on personal accounts from enrollees who were at Mesa Verde as well as official records and camp newspaper accounts of activities. From the rigors of working on a bug crew to swapping out the carburetor jets on the trucks, even seemingly mundane tasks associated with life in the CCC camps are worthy of mention in the text. And, while CCC work was “labor intensive and characteristically unglamorous,” it seems the enrollees could always make time for taking potshots at a bobcat with a “bean shooter” or for dumping a local jail building in the river!

Also noteworthy are the more than 35 photos that illustrate the text as well as the walking tour of CCC projects that is included near the end of the book. (The walking tour was written by Don Ross.) Also, for those with a particular interest in camp architecture, there is a terrific section entitled “Architecture, Design and Construction of CCC Camps at Mesa Verde” written by Susana M. Jones also included in the text.

You can see (and purchase) the New Deal Days at the publisher’s website Here.

Be sure to visit the Mesa Verde Museum Association website.

At roughly 130 pages in length a book of this size leaves you wondering what else there might be to uncover. (For example, what were the exact details regarding the jail and its dip into the river?) Nevertheless, this book is still another required addition for anyone hoping to compile a library of meaningful CCC books and with a cover price that is altogether reasonable, there really isn’t any excuse to pass this one up.

A Mystery From the Bookshelf: Who Was Wendell Young?

2009-11-23T14:35:00.000-08:00

Understand from the outset that we may never know exactly who Wendell Young was, or is and in that fact there may be a lesson.

In the course of researching and reading about the Civilian Conservation Corps, I’ve managed to acquire a file cabinet or two full of histories and recollections about the New Deal era and especially the CCC. Some of the most intriguing stories are the ones that have a lot of loose ends to them.

Consider an old copy of the Dupont Blasters Handbook, Ninth Edition from 1938. The copy I have is nearly pristine and still in the box that it was shipped in from the advertising department at Dupont in Wilmington, Delaware. Carefully inked inside the front cover is the following:
Wendell J. Young
CCC Co# 1608
CCC-47257 Camp Tomahawk

The book doesn’t contain another mark of any kind. One wonders if young Wendell used the book for a class or if he simply put it in his footlocker and forgot about it.

The bookseller was evidently selling off lots of items related to Mr. Young’s life and in another group was a collection of photos, presumably of Wendell and family or friends. What I find especially interesting is the significant difference between the photo of Wendell at a family gathering (above) compared to the image of the rough and ready outdoorsman in another photo presumably taken at camp (below).

According to a newspaper clipping that was with the other items, the group eventually ended up in Washington State and it seems this might be where the second photo was taken, but unless someone steps forward with more information, it’s really anyone’s guess.

For now Wendell Young will remain just another of the 3 million or so young men who enrolled in the CCC and perhaps quickly forgot about the experience as they helped win a war, raise a family and toil in relative obscurity, all the while making ours the greatest nation on the face of the earth.

It’s easy enough to say that we’ll never, ever know all there is to know about the 3 million or so young men who enrolled in the CCC between 1933 and 1942 but somehow it’s difficult to reconcile ourselves to the fact that we may never know much about Wendell Young, except that he was once in the CCC, he once owned a Dupont Blaster’s Handbook and someone loved him very much.

You can see a US Government image from Camp Tomahawk HERE.

The Colorado Whoopenhollars: Living a Good Life Despite the Great Depression

2009-06-29T12:34:00.000-07:00

If we look deep enough and consider all that was happening during the 1930s, it becomes clear that one of the primary accomplishments – if not a goal stated outright - of the CCC was the preservation of families and family livelihoods.

Remember that enrollees were required to send all but a few dollars of their $30 monthly pay home to their needy family. FDR and his advisors realized that money accumulating in an enrollee’s footlocker, deep in some forest in Arkansas or Colorado, wouldn’t do the economy much good. For thousands of families, that additional $25 meant the difference between paying the rent and being tossed into the street. The allotment sent home by a son meant food on the table.

While we’ll never know every CCC enrollee story, we’ve got a good grasp of camp life and the work that went into insuring that the family received the monthly allotment. But what of those who remained at home while the young enrollee shipped out to work in a park or forest far from home? We have some of that story through the eyes of the enrollees themselves because they’ve often told of how important that monthly allotment was to their parents or loved ones. But what about the families of the men who ran the CCC camps? What about the foremen and supervisors from the National Park Service, the Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Forest Service? What did the creation of the CCC mean to their families?

The Colorado Whoopenhollars, a newly released book offers a glimpse of what it was like to be waiting at home while a father is far away working as a supervisor in the forestry camps of the CCC. The full title of the book is The Colorado Whoopenhollars: Living a Good Life Despite the Great Depression and in it the reader is transported back to a small Colorado town in the 1930s. Through personal recollections, letters and the shared memories and experiences of her four brothers Jean Rutherford Duaine provides a close look at small town life during the Great Depression and just as importantly, she offers an insight into how a father coped with the long months of forestry work that kept him from his wife and small children.

The first section of the book is literally a guided tour of Georgetown, Colorado as the author remembers it from the 1930s. We’re introduced to an extended but tight knit family struggling to look after each other in the midst of a national economic crisis. In addition to siblings, parents, grandparents and uncles, we meet friends and neighbors from town – many of whom are as close as family. Woven through this narrative is the continual longing of a youngster for her daddy, William Rutherford, who is miles and miles away working for the U.S. Forest Service.

The latter portion of the book contains the texts of the letters that Bill Rutherford wrote to his children during his long absences; but these aren’t really just letters, they’re the story of five youngsters – the Whoopenhollar kids (named Billy, Frank, John, Jean and Glenn after Rutherford’s own children) and their hair raising adventures in the wilds of the Rocky Mountains. A careful reader will come to realize that a longing for loved ones burned in the heart of both the family at home and the forest ranger working in the forest camp far from home.

Part family history, part historical record, part children’s story, The Colorado Whoopenhollars will appeal to readers of all ages. Moreover, despite the national desperation and hardship of those times, the story is upbeat and full of the author’s love of a special time and place.

While not directly related to the Civilian Conservation Corps, The Colorado Whoopenhollars offers a rare look at how the families of this era coped with the long absences of sons, brothers, husbands and fathers while they were away working in the CCC. More importantly perhaps, the book offers a glimpse at one father’s heart warming effort to remain connected to his kids back home.

For more information visit:

The Official Colorado Whoopenhollar website

Disclaimer:Jean Rutherford Duaine is my mom. I couldn’t be more proud of her for writing this book and my enthusiasm probably makes me a biased source but there you have it.

Phoenix Unveils Arizona's Second CCC Worker Statue, 50th in the United States

2009-03-01T09:19:00.000-08:00

The program kicked off shortly after 1 pm, February 21st at the South Mountain Environmental Education Center with opening introductions by park staffers P.J. Conover and Kim Keith. Mr. Conover, Recreation Coordinator and Facilities Manager expressed excitement over both the positive turnout as having both the dedication of the CCC Worker Statue and the formal opening of the Grand Canyon, National Park Service traveling exhibit. Mr. Keith, Park Manager, spoke of his new found appreciation for the CCC, gained as a result of his work at the park, amid so much CCC history.

Mr. Keith then turned the ceremony over to Michael Smith, President of CCC Legacy Chapter 44 based in Phoenix. Mr. Smith welcomed those in attendance, and specifically recognized the CCC veterans in the audience. Smith noted the place that the work and legacy of the CCC has alongside not just the wartime service of the New Deal generation, but also alongside that largely forgotten humanitarian effort, the Berlin Airlift that came so soon after the carnage of the war. Smith noted that no other nation could have turned its efforts so quickly and seamlessly from saving its own youth, to fighting a war across two oceans and then quickly back to saving a former foe in time of crisis, with a compassion that only comes from having suffered yourself.

Smith then introduced Bob Audretsch, recently retired National Park Service ranger from Grand Canyon National Park. Ranger Audretsch helped spearhead the CCC exhibit and symposium at Grand Canyon in 2008 and it was in part due to his effort that that same exhibit has now traveled to South Mountain Park were thousands more visitors will see and enjoy it. Mr. Audretsch presented a detailed and interesting account of the work of the CCC at Grand Canyon along with a history of the national CCC program. Audretsch pointed out that in all the years that the CCC worked at Grand Canyon, not a single enrollee was killed in a work related accident, despite the dangerous nature of their high angle work building trails and improvements in the Canyon and on its rims. Audretsch also alluded to the fact that, in much of the work of the CCC, heroism was an everyday thing. Audretsch then turned the program back over to Kim Keith who asked everyone to file out into the courtyard for the official unveiling of the statue.

With the crowd now gathered around the statue, Michael Smith read a letter from CCC Legacy President Joan Sharpe acknowledging the special day and pointing out that this statue is the 50th such statue to be dedicated in the United States. P.J. Conover then asked Jack Duncan, Vice-President of Chapter 44 to step forward to assist with the unveiling of the statue, which was done to enthusiastic applause. Smith then spoke briefly about the history of the Chapter 44 statue projects and noted that in the case of both of Arizona’s statues – Colossal Cave and South Mountain Park – the primary funding came from CCC veterans, proving the point that if you want a job done, call on a CCC boy. Smith noted specifically the generous contribution from Chapter 44 Vice-President Jack Duncan, whose donation funded the South Mountain statue. Jack Duncan then stepped forward and offered some personal reflections on the legacy of the CCC and specifically the struggle to make certain that the story of the CCC is told honestly and correctly in the future. Jack noted in particular his own effort decades ago as he worked to set a local history teach straight regarding the work of the CCC.

The members of Chapter 44 then stepped forward to have their picture taken with the newly dedicated statue and everyone was asked to stay for refreshments and to view the traveling CCC history exhibit. It is estimated that there were over 100 in attendance for the event.

The staff at South Mountain Park have developed a wonderful web page devoted to the work of the CCC at the park and nationwide. You can access that page here.

Arizona Dedicates Its First Civilian Conservation Corps Worker Statue!

2008-12-08T18:49:00.000-08:00

We couldn’t have asked for better weather or a more enthusiastic group in attendance to celebrate the dedication of Arizona’s first CCC Worker Statue on October 25, 2008.

As always, J.J. Lamb and the staff at Colossal Cave put together a terrific event with a slate of speakers that included historians and researchers, local elected officials as well as a rousing portrayal of President Franklin Roosevelt, remarkably performed by James Goodin.

Colossal Cave’s CCC connection runs deep. To quote the text of the dedication program: “Colossal Cave Mountain Park owes a tremendous debt of gratitude to the men of the Civilian Conservation Corps. From 1934 to 1937 two CCC companies, 0858 and 2851, worked at what is now Colossal Cave Mountain Park…Inside the Cave, they widened passages, established trails, installed handrails and lighting, and enlarged the entrance. Above ground, they constructed the magnificent hewn-limestone retaining wall and headquarters buildings.”

Following remarks by guest speakers, Arizona’s first CCC Worker Statue was unveiled by Gerald Johnson, CCC veteran and Colossal Cave Mountain Park Director Martie Maierhauser. It was Gerald Johnson’s generous initial donation in 2004 that got Arizona’s statue campaign rolling and ultimately, an additional donation from Mr. Johnson insured that the statue would be a reality. It is safe to say that without Gerald Johnson, the statue dedication would not have taken place in this, the 75th anniversary year of the CCC.

The statue will stand near the entrance to the visitor’s center where all who visit the Cave will see him, standing proud, a reminder of a simpler but tougher time in our history when sometimes all you had to show for a day’s work was a new set of blisters.

CCC 75th Anniversary Writing Contest Winners Announced!

2008-04-07T13:38:00.000-07:00

The score sheets are in and the results have been tallied! Civilian Conservation Corps Legacy Chapter 44 is pleased to announce the winners of the Civilian Conservation Corps 75th Anniversary Writing Competition. Individual winners will be notified by mail and all entrants will receive an acknowledgement of their work and a token of appreciation from CCC Legacy Chapter 44.

The winners are:

First Place Winner: J. Bankhead
The Civilian Conservation Corps: Important To America Then and Now

Second Place Winner: K. Neithercutt
Civilian Conservation Corps

Third Place Winner: A. Bancod
Civilian Conservation Corps: The Start

First Honorable Mention: T. Zaman
The History of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)

Second Honorable Mention: K. Kottmer
The Spirit of the CCC

Third Honorable Mention: S. Syed
The Civilian Conservation Corps and Their Effect on Social America

Our thanks go out to all who put forth the effort to research and write a paper on the Civilian Conservation Corps. We hope that through this project some of you may come to a lifelong interest in the history of the CCC and that when the 100th anniversary rolls around in 25 years, you will be the young scholars who write a new page in the legacy of the Civilian Conservation Corps.

A special thank you also goes out to Mrs. Nelson at Alhambra Traditional School who has the distinction of having the most students enter the competition. Mrs. Nelson’s effort greatly improved the nature of the competition and brought the story of the CCC to youngsters who might not have otherwise learned about this important New Deal program.
Once the awards are presented, the three winning entries will be published in the quarterly newsletter of CCC Legacy Chapter 44, copies of which will be mailed to the winners.

The Birth of the Civilian Conservation Corps

2008-03-18T18:23:00.000-07:00

With our elected officials frequently deadlocked over seemingly petty squabbles that prevent meaningful legislation from being passed, it seems astonishing that the legislation creating the Civilian Conservation Corps sailed through congress in less than three weeks. The seeds of a work relief program with a focus on conservation of both young lives and natural resources were alive in Franklin Roosevelt's mind years before his inauguration as president. Indeed the following timeline outlining the first significant events leading up to the creation of the CCC on March 31, 1933 dates back as early as 1910. For an outstanding account of not only the creation of the CCC but numerous aspects of its operation between 1933 and 1942, see John Salmond's book The Civilian Conservation Corps 1933-1942: A New Deal Case Study. In the meantime, here's a quick thumbnail sketch of the birth of the Civilian Conservation Corps.

1910
Franklin Delano Roosevelt takes over the family estate at Hyde Park and immediately begins a reforestation effort.

1931
Roosevelt sponsors an amendment to the New York constitution giving the state government authority to acquire and reforest marginal lands with funds created from the sale of bonds.

1932
Roosevelt adapts a reforestation program for use in unemployment relief.

July 2
In accepting the Democratic presidential nomination, Roosevelt proclaims that he has, “a very definite program for providing employment…,” through the establishment of a conservation program.

1933

January
James Couzens, a Republican senator from Michigan fails in his attempt to pass a Senate bill authorizing the use of the Army for unemployment relief. Though a failed effort, Couzens’ measure introduces the concept of military involvement in relief efforts.

March 9
Meeting with advisors, including the Secretaries of the interior, agriculture, and war FDR diagrams his plan to put 500,000 men to work on conservation-related projects. He asks them to prepare draft legislation, requesting they complete the task by days end. Roosevelt is given a draft document at 9 that evening and further discussion is conducted immediately.

March 14
Roosevelt sends a memorandum to the secretaries of war, interior, labor and agriculture, asking them to form “an informal committee of the Cabinet to co-ordinate the plans for the proposed Civilian Conservation Corps.”

March 15
At his third press conference since being inaugurated president, Roosevelt expounds on the proposed forestry work program, including the proposed wage of $1 a day. Roosevelt explains that swift action on the matter is a foregone conclusion.

March 21
Roosevelt’s message concerning the “Relief of Unemployment” is sent to the Congress. In this message Roosevelt outlined a three-pronged attack on the problem, with the first effort being, “the enrollment of workers now by the Federal Government for such public employment as can be quickly started and will not interfere with the demand for, or the proper standards of, normal employment.”

More specifically, Roosevelt uttered what may be the most often quoted phrase in connection with the Civilian Conservation Corps:
I propose to create a Civilian Conservation Corps to be used in simple work, not interfering with normal employment and confining itself to forestry, the prevention of soil erosion, flood control and similar projects. I estimate that 250,000 men can be given temporary employment by early summer if you give me authority to proceed within two weeks.
Roosevelt went on to state:
More important will be the moral and spiritual value of such work. The overwhelming majority of unemployed Americans who are walking the streets and receiving private or public relief would infinitely prefer to work. We can take a vast army of these unemployed out into healthful surroundings.

Following the President’s message at bill entitled “The Relief of Unemployment Through the Performance of Useful Public Work and for other Purposes” was introduced into both the Senate and the House.

Labor leaders quickly condemn the plan for its wage and recruitment provisions and because of the involvement of the Army.

March 22
Roosevelt calls members of the Senate Committee on Education and Labor, and the House Committee on Labor to the White House where he explains his CCC plan in more detail and attempts to allay the fears expressed by organized labor and members of the Socialist party.

March 23-24
Joint Senate and House hearings begin in an atmosphere of cooperation possibly due to Roosevelt’s evening meeting at the White House the night before. Presiding over the hearings is Senator David I. Walsh, a Massachusetts Democrat and chairman of the Senate Committee on Education and Labor. Walsh prods the proceedings forward in an effort to adhere to Roosevelt’s stated desire.

Among those testifying at the Joint hearing is Chief forester Major Stuart who testified at length regarding the need for forest workers. Stuart also makes a successful bid to broaden the program’s scope of work to include not just national forests but also state and private forests. Without such a change, Stuart argues, there will have to be a transfer of men from east of the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountain region where 95 percent of the public domain is situated. (With 70 percent of the unemployment located east of the Mississippi, it didn’t make sense to transport men westward to give them work.)
Secretary of Labor, Miss Frances Perkins also stresses the programs aim of work relief when questioned about the proposed $1 a day wage for enrollees. She explains that most of the workers are expected to be young, single men and that the CCC should not be viewed “in the sense of providing real wage-producing employment.”

Army chief of staff, General Douglas MacArthur testifies that there will be “no military training whatsoever,” with the military restricting its participation to gathering the men selected by the Department of Labor, outfitting the men, giving the men a physical examination and physical conditioning before transporting them to their camps where they would be turned over to the Department of Agriculture.

The next witness is William Green, president of the American Federation of Labor. Green attacks the program on three points: regimentation of labor, low wages and funding. To Green the mandatory allotment and the involvement of the military “smacked of fascism, Hitlerism, of a form of Sovietism…” Green argues that the CCC wage of $1 a day would establish that as the national wage for workers. Other labor representatives also testify and the hearing adjourns on a far less optimistic note than it convened.

March 27
An amended S. 598 is reintroduced into the Senate. In response to the objections raised by labor, it was agreed that the focus should be on the two aspects of the program for which there were no objections from any side: the chance to perform forestry work as a means of relieving unemployment and the use of unobligated funds to pay for the program. The re-submitted bill merely authorized the President to work in the public domain, perform reforestation and employ unemployed citizens to perform the work.

In the House opposition to the bill is more robust and broad based. Despite indications from labor leaders that the $30 monthly wage would not be contested, an effort was launched to set the pay scale at $50 a month for single enrollees and $80 a month for married enrollees.

March 28
The senate bill is passed by voice vote over dwindling opposition, with minor amendments and in part because of the continuing efforts of Senator Walsh.

March 29
The House considers the bill amended and passed by the Senate on March 28th. Representative Connery stood to protest the proposed wage and dramatically announced that once again, labor leaders had again changed their position and now opposed the bill. Still another faction stood to argue that the measure imparted nearly dictatorial powers on the president and would lead a majority of the population believing that “it is the Government’s duty to put them on the pay roll.”

Nevertheless, the intent of the bill receives wide support in the House, with many recognizing it as focusing on relief of unemployment, not wage control. Representative Thomas G. Cochran of Missouri, stated that he disliked many of Roosevelt’s proposals, but admitting that “…I do like the way the President of the U.S. is trying to meet this emergency…”

Like Senator Walsh in the senate, Representative Robert Ramspeck, a Democrat from Georgia, carries the torch for the bill in the House, emphasizing the emergency nature of the legislation and its important relief function.

Connery’s proposal to set the monthly wage at $50 fails, along with a last minute effort by Republicans to delay proceedings on a point of order. Only three amendments are adopted, including that proposed by Representative Oscar De Priest, a Republican from Illinois and the sole African-American Congressman. De Priest proposed “that no discrimination shall be made on account of race, color, or creed…under the provisions of this Act.”

The bill is passed by a voice vote.

March 30
The Senate accepts the House amendments to the bill and it is forwarded to the President.

March 31
President Roosevelt signs into law the legislation creating the Emergency Conservation Work (ECW) program.

April 17
First CCC camp is established in the George Washington National Forest in Virginia.

In an article titled “Rizzo Goes To Work,” Time magazine reports that a week earlier, 19 year old Fiore Rizzo reported to the Army Building in downtown Manhattan and reported for duty as the first CCC enrollee.

Important CCC Publications Now Available Online!

2008-01-22T09:02:00.000-08:00

An anonymous guest posted a comment regarding two recent web postings that will be of interest to people interested in CCC history and the information is important enough to warrant a specific post.

In a move that will prove both timely and monumental, John Salmond’s The Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933-1942: A New Deal Case Study has been posted online nearly in its entirety (only the index has been omitted).

Salmond’s book is a recognized cornerstone to the structure that is CCC research and scholarship. In the 1960s John Salmond did first what few (if any) have done better: he wrote the life history of the CCC. Admittedly short on the personal narratives seen in so many books and articles today, Salmond’s book is a study of how the CCC came to be and how it grew and evolved, flourished and eventually fell into decline as the U.S. was nudged closer and closer to participation in a world war. Without Salmond’s initial important research and documentation of the program, most of today’s oral history and personal narrative on the CCC would simply be interesting documentation of life experiences, but lacking important context. Though published in 1967, Salmond’s book is very nearly a primary source document for those seeking an organizational history of the Civilian Conservation Corps.

Our anonymous visitor also shared the good news that the U.S. Forest Service history The Forest Service and the Civilian Conservation Corps: 1933-1942 can now be viewed online. Published in 1986, this government publication is especially interesting reading for CCC researchers whose interest is with the work done for the Forest Service. Print copies can be found for sale online and usually run to over $100; having this detailed piece of CCC scholarship available online for free is a huge boon, not simply for people researching the CCC but also for people with a general interest in the U.S. Forest Service.

A huge thank you goes out to our anonymous visitor – we appreciate your help in keeping us up to date on available CCC research material!

John Salmond’s The Civilian Conservation Corps can be viewed and downloaded here:

http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/ccc/salmond/index.htm

The U.S. Forest Service book The Forest Service and the CCC can be viewed and downloaded here:

http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/ccc/ccc/index.htm

Keep Visiting!

2008-01-15T18:34:00.001-08:00

The membership of CCC Legacy Chapter 44 send their thanks and best wishes to all of you who have visited and especially to those special few who have done the work to submit an entry for the competition. You'll all be hearing back from us in the next few weeks, once the judging is completed.

Remember the CCC!

The Deadline is Approaching!

2008-01-04T07:12:00.001-08:00

A friendly reminder: Entries for the CCC writing competition must be postmarked January 12, 2008.

Hopefully you are putting the finishing touches on your entry! Initially all entries will be judged for their compliance with the general guidelines for the competition before being passed along to a panel of judges for judging.

Once the competition closes, this blog will convert to a resource page for CCC-related research, without a specific focus on the 75th anniversary writing competition, so we hope that you'll keep it saved as a favorite for future research on the Civilian Conservation Corps!

Holidays Far From Home

2007-12-01T15:49:00.000-08:00

What was life like in a C.C.C. camp during the holidays?

Typically, any enrollee who had earned the privilege and who wanted to would be allowed to go home for the holidays if time permitted and distances were not too great. This wasn’t too difficult for enrollees whose camps were close to their hometown. For enrollees who’d traveled across the country, it might not be possible. Many enrollees in Arizona C.C.C. camps were from Texas, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania, so getting home for Thanksgiving or Christmas wasn’t always possible.

To ease the pain of separation from family and loved-ones, most C.C.C. camps prepared special dinners for Thanksgiving and Christmas and held Christmas parties, often “adopting” local children and inviting residents to visit the camps.

Civilian Conservation Corps enrollees performed no work on Thanksgiving and Christmas and a special holiday meal would be prepared and often special menus would be printed up describing the day’s meal, occasionally noting that cigars or cigarettes would be available following the meal. Additionally, a Company roster would sometimes be printed in the menu, to become a souvenir of an enrollee’s time in the C.C.C.

It Wasn't Always About Work In the CCC

2007-11-25T17:59:00.000-08:00

How much free time do you have each week? What do you do with your free time?

Civilian Conservation Corps enrollees generally worked on field projects Monday through Friday, 8 hours a day, and half a day in camp on Saturdays. Evenings and part of the weekend were reserved for leisure time and usually enrollees were allowed to spend their free time any way they saw fit. Most camps offered classes after the evening meal and there was almost always a recreation hall in the camp where enrollees could play games like billiards, ping pong or cards. A camp library was usually stocked with magazines and books and this was usually a quiet place where enrollees could study or write letters home. At least one camp library even had a sign that read, "Have you written home this week?"

Camp Library, Riley Creek Wisconsin. The sign reads: "Do It Now."

Camps that were located close to towns and cities generally had fewer morale problems than camps that were located far from population centers. When a camp was located close to a town or city, the camp commander usually authorized the use of a vehicle to carry enrollees into town on the weekend so they could see a movie or attend a dance. At least one camp commander obtained movie tickets from a local theatre owner and offered them as a reward to the enrollees in his camp.

Most camps also had a camp "canteen" that sold small items like candy bars, gum, tobacco and simple luxury items. The funds raised in the canteen were often used to buy sports equipment for the company or to fund other company activities.

The camp recreation hall and canteen for Company 847, Grand Canyon.

One of the most remote camps was located at the bottom of Grand Canyon, near Phantom Ranch. (This was one of about six CCC camps at Grand Canyon National Park.) Enrollees assigned to the Phantom Ranch camp carried a pool table from the south rim to their camp in order to have some new entertainment in their recreation hall!

Enrollees from Company 818 play croquet at the bottom of Grand Canyon.

What would you be willing to do in order to have something to do in your spare time?

Ideas for CCC Researchers

2007-09-17T08:43:00.001-07:00

Put yourself in their shoes.

There are many ways to go about researching the story of the Civilian Conservation Corps. One way to get started might be to consider certain questions about the program, or to put yourself in the shoes of a CCC enrollee or CCC camp commander.

What was it like for a young CCC enrollee to leave his family and go to work in a CCC camp? What things would a new enrollee need to take with him to camp? What things would a new enrollee be given when he arrived in camp? If you were a CCC enrollee, do you think you would be homesick sometimes? Would you write home to tell your family and friends how you were doing and what you were doing? What would you do when your enrollment in the CCC was over? Would you ask to stay in or ask for your discharge and go home?

If you were a commander in charge of a CCC camp, what things do you think you would have to think about? What potential problems would you face? How would you deal with discipline problems? How would you reward hard work and good behavior? How would you handle trouble between your CCC enrollees and residents of a nearby town?

Put yourself in the place of a resident of a small town that learns it is about to have a CCC camp established right down the road. What questions would you have? Would you want to know if young men from your town could work in the camp? Would you be concerned because "outsiders" were moving in near your town? What benefits would come from having the camp nearby? What might be the potential drawbacks to having a camp established near your town?

These are all things you can consider as you begin your research of the CCC. In the course of your research you'll probably discover how real-life CCC enrollees and camp commanders dealt with these questions. Perhaps in your research you'll actually meet and talk to men who were in the CCC to get their personal experiences from that time.

Civilian Conservation Corps Writing Contest Rules Posted!

2007-09-17T08:22:00.000-07:00

The contest rules have been posted at the bottom of the page for prospective contest entrants. Also, the CCC Resource Blog has been modified to permit posting of comments from visitors. If you have questions about the contest, post them. If you are working on a CCC research project and would like to share some of your story with other visitors to the Resource blog, please post your comments, too.

Word about the contest has been sent out to each of the county school systems in Arizona, either by email or by snail mail. In addition to the rules, which have been added today, more information about the contest will be posted here in the coming days, along with tips about how to research the CCC and things you might consider as a CCC researcher and writer.

Good Luck!

Other Useful Sources

2007-08-29T20:02:00.000-07:00

While there are not a lot of books that deal specifically with the CCC, there are hundreds of books about the Great Depression and Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, many of which contain references to the CCC and also useful information to help put the CCC program in its historical context. Some authors argue that the New Deal was a great success, while others argue that it was not a success and some argue that the programs of the New Deal prolonged the Great Depression. In using these source materials, keep in mind the author's point of view and their opinion. What is their thesis regarding the New Deal? What main point are they striving to make? Weigh their arguments against other authors and check their sources to see if they've done sufficient research to back up their claims.

Here, in no particular order are a few books that deal with the Great Depression and/or the New Deal:
The Bonus Army by Paul Dickson & Thomas B. Allen
Riding the Rails by Errol Lincoln Uys
FDR's Folly by Jim Powell
The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan
The New Deal in Arizona by William S. Collins
FDR and His Enemies by Albert Fried
Dust Bowl by Donald Worster
The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes
The Great Depression by Robert S. McElvaine

This list is not exhaustive by any means and new titles may be added here from time to time so check back occasionally.

CCC Writing Competition Announced!!

2007-08-27T17:43:00.001-07:00

Information packets announcing the Arizona CCC 75th Anniversary Student Writing Competition are being sent out to teachers and educators across the state. The contest is open to Arizona students in 6th through 12th grade. Submissions must be postmarked no later than Saturday, January 12, 2008. If your school does not have information about the contest, you can send a request for information to: armyscout@asualumni.org

Check back here from time to time for any contest updates and new information regarding CCC research. Good Luck!

Books About the CCC

2007-08-14T20:21:00.001-07:00

This list isn't in any particular order and isn't all-inclusive, but it should start you off in the right direction in your CCC research. This blog isn't intended as a way to sell books. You should be able to obtain copies of some of these books at your local library. Other books, especially the government publications can be hard to locate and an interlibrary loan may be needed if you decide you want to obtain a copy of the book in question.

Without question one of the single best books on the CCC is John Salmond's book subtitled "A New Deal Case Study," which is long out of print but which can be borrowed at local libraries and at ASU. Check back occasionally to see if new source material has been added to this list.

Louis Lester Purvis, The Ace in the Hole: A Brief History of Company 818 of the Civilian Conservation Corps (Columbus, GA: Brentwood Christian Press, 1989)

Alfred Emile Cornebise, The CCC Chronicles: Camp Newspapers of the Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933-1942 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co. 2004)

John A. Salmond, The Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933-1942: A New Deal Case Study (Durham: Duke UP, 1967)

Peggy Sanders, The Civilian Conservation Corps In and Around the Black Hills (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2004)

Leslie Alexander Lacy, The Soil Soldiers: The Civilian Conservation Corps in the Great Depression (Radnor [Pa.]: Chilton Book Co., 1976)

United States, Department of Agriculture, The Forest Service and The Civilian Conservation Corps: 1933-42, FS-395 (Washington: GPO, 1986)

Christine E. Savage, New Deal Adobe (Santa Barbara: Fithian Press, 1991)

Kathy Mays Smith, Gold Medal CCC Company 1538: A Documentary, (Paducah, KY: Turner Pub., 2001)

Larry N. Sypolt, Civilian Conservation Corps: A Selectively Annotated Bibliography (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2005)

Robert J. Moore, The Civilian Conservation Corps in Arizona’s Rim Country: Working in the Woods, (Las Vegas: Univ. Of Nevada Press, 2006)

Renee Corona Kolvet & Victoria Ford, The Civilian Conservation Corps in Nevada, (Las Vegas: Univ. Of Nevada Press, 2006)

Where to start....

2007-08-14T20:15:00.001-07:00

There are a number of useful books detailing the history and work of the CCC from 1933 to 1942. Your local library may have some of them, or you school librarian may be able to obtain them for you. Elsewhere on this page you'll find a list of some of the more exhaustive studies of the CCC. Also remember that the CCC story is covered in other books about the Great Depression.

The internet can also be a useful tool for conducting research for your writing project, but remember to use the internet carefully and to always double check internet sources if you can because not everything that appears on the internet is accurate or unbiased.