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CCC participants at work, Prince George's County, Maryland. 1935. Library of Congress
The Civilian Conservation Corps
During the Great Depression of the 1930s, President Franklin Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) put 3 million young men to work across America.
Earlier this year, President Biden proposed a modern day version of this effort with his Civilian Climate Corps proposal that would put thousands of young people to work addressing the threat of climate change and restoring public lands.
Throughout its existence, Roosevelt's CCC would employ 5% of the total U.S. male population. The program's primary goal was to bring poor young men out of America's urban centers to rehabilitate their health and morale while contributing to their families' economic well being. A secondary goal focused on the country's needs for conservation in forests, farmland and parks.
Living in camps across all 48 states (and the territories of Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands,) the men of 'the C’s’ created camping areas and hiking trails in State and National Parks, built roads, fought forest fires, constructed dams, and planted 2.3 billion trees — half of the trees ever planted in the U.S. — all for $1 a day.
Explore these photos of some young men in the CCC and their projects in this photo gallery.
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The average CCC enrollee was 17-18 years old, with limited reading and writing capability. Most boys had not completed high school and had only worked occasional odd jobs for $8-$9 per week. Nearly all had unemployed parents.
Credit: Office of War Information Photograph Collection. November, 1935
While African Americans lost their jobs at a higher rate during the Depression, CCC Director Robert Fechner ordered black enrollment to remain capped at 10%, mirroring the minority percentage in the U.S. population.
Credit: Office of War Information Photograph Collection. June, 1941.
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