Book ID: CBB384814014

The New Deal's Forest Army: How the Civilian Conservation Corps Worked (2018)

unapi

Alexander, Benjamin F. (Author)


Johns Hopkins University Press


Publication Date: 2018
Physical Details: 192
Language: English

How the Civilian Conservation Corps constructed, rejuvenated, and protected American forests and parks at the height of the Great Depression. 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.

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Reviewed By

Review Aubrey Underwood (2020) Review of "The New Deal's Forest Army: How the Civilian Conservation Corps Worked". Journal of Southern History (pp. 517-518). unapi

Review Neil M. Maher (October 2018) Review of "The New Deal's Forest Army: How the Civilian Conservation Corps Worked". Environmental History (pp. 874-875). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB384814014/

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Authors & Contributors
Miller, Char
Bixler, R. Patrick
David A. Poirier
Wilson, Mark R.
Kellison, Robert C.
Conti-Brown, Peter
Concepts
Forests and forestry
Public policy
Conservation and restoration
Parks
Environmental history
Regulation
Time Periods
20th century
21st century
19th century
Medieval
Ancient
Places
United States
Southern states (U.S.)
Belarus
Connecticut (U.S.)
England
Amazon River Region (South America)
Institutions
New Deal (1933-1939)
United States. Farm Security Administration
United States. Department of Agriculture
Civilian Conservation Corps (U.S.)
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