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

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: Alabama

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.