Propelled by the unprecedented poverty of the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established an array of massive public works programs designed to provide direct relief to America's poor and unemployed. The New Deal's most tangible legacy may be the Civilian Conservation Corps's network of parks, national forests, scenic roadways, and picnic shelters that still mark the country's landscape. CCC enrollees, most of them unmarried young men, lived in camps run by the Army and worked hard for wages (most of which they had to send home to their families) to preserve America's natural treasures.
In The New Deal's Forest Army, Benjamin F. Alexander chronicles how the corps came about, the process applicants went through to get in, and what jobs they actually did. He also explains how the camps and the work sites were run, how enrollees spent their leisure time, and how World War II brought the CCC to its end. Connecting the story of the CCC with the Roosevelt administration's larger initiatives, Alexander describes how FDR's policies constituted a mixed blessing for African Americans who, even while singled out for harsh treatment, benefited enough from the New Deal to become an increasingly strong part of the electorate behind the Democratic Party.
The CCC was the only large-scale employment program whose existence FDR foreshadowed in speeches during the 1932 campaign'and the dearest to his heart throughout the decade that it lasted. Alexander reveals how the work itself left a lasting imprint on the country's terrain as the enrollees planted trees, fought forest fires, landscaped public parks, restored historic battlegrounds, and constructed dams and terraces to prevent floods. A uniquely detailed exploration of life in the CCC, The New Deal's Forest Army compellingly demonstrates how one New Deal program changed America and gave birth to both contemporary forestry and the modern environmental movement.
Acknowledgments Introduction 1. How the CCC Came About 2. How Boys and Men Joined the CCC 3. How the Enrollees Labored and Learned 4. How the Enrollees Spent Their Leisure Time 5. How the Coming of War Spelled the End of the CCC Notes Suggested Further Reading Index
""In this concise and deliberate study, Benjamin F. Alexander demonstrates the origin, implementation, and ultimate demise of a program that gained tremendous popularity during the 1930s and ably presents why the CCC remains such a prominent part of New Deal history. Alexander's book is a snapshot of the 1930s with an explicit focus that provides significant depth to the CCC story... the book moves at a swift pace and is an eminently readable look at one of the most important periods in American history. Alexander succeeds in explaining how the CCC worked and in doing so provides a book will make a great text for use in the classroom.""
