United States Government organization created to
provide work to unemployed Americans and build/repair civil
projects around the country. (April, 1933 to June,
1942)
"I propose to create a Civilian Conservation
Corps to be used in simple work...more important, however, than
the material gains will be the moral and spiritual value of
such work."
-- President Franklin D. Roosevelt
March
9, 1933
Part of FDR's New Deal (or "Alphabet Soup", according to
opponents) program, the Emergency Conservation Work (ECW) Act
established the Civilian Conservation Corps. The CCC was originally
designed to overcome effects of the Great Depression, the CCC
provided employment for over 3 million people in the 1930s and
1940s. Most of this work was unskilled manual labor -- digging,
fixing, cleaning -- but the jobs undertaken by the program helped
the USA recover from economic and social crisis.
The CCC was folded into the US Armed Forces in 1942 after it
was deemed unnecessary by the Senate budgeting committees.
However, many of the young men who grew up working for the CCC later
became the soldiers who helped the US win World War II. General
George C. Marshall credited the CCC with helping to train them.
Some of the projects credited to the CCC:
To understand the scale of the work done by the CCC, in the 9
year span participants built:
References:
The National Association of CCC Alumni website
(http://www.cccalumni.org/)
The National Park Service webpage
(http://www.nps.gov/)
Memory
Various Blue Ridge Parkway and TVA tours and brochures.