The Mysteries of History (April 5 Edition)
FDR Creates the CCC (New Deal)
1933 — Franklin D. Roosevelt Creates the Civilian Conservation Corps
public domain image from wikimedia commons
The following is what I wrote about FDR and the CC, and the “New Deal” in general, in my book Still Casting Shadows: A Shared Mosaic of U.S. History — Volume 2: 1914-2006:
In contrast to Hoover’s laissez faire approach to solving the nation’s financial and social troubles, Franklin Delano Roosevelt took bold and decisive steps to jump-start the moribund economy. No less dynamic and dramatic a man than his distant relative Theodore Roosevelt had been, FDR gradually introduced a compendium of programs he termed a “New Deal.”
Among the elements of this multi-faceted “New Deal” were many public works programs. Some of these were the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps), which put hundreds of thousands to work planting trees, blazing trails, and building roads and campgrounds; the WPA (Works Progress Administration), which created jobs for millions of Americans in a variety of jobs ranging from additions to the country’s infrastructure, such as the building of high ways, bridges, tunnels, and dams, to artistic projects such as the painting of murals and recording of oral histories; the Federal Writer’s Project, which wrote the “American Guide” series covering each individual state in detail; and the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority), which, besides providing many jobs, provided water power in—you probably guessed it—the Tennessee River Valley. In response to the dire consequences of over-farming the southern plains (the “Dust Bowl”), FDR had 220 million trees planted between the North Dakota/Canada border and just south of Amarillo, Texas. This arboreal band was to serve a three-fold purpose: Serve as a wind-break; check soil erosion; provide jobs for the unemployed. In addition to those things, FDR also introduced revolutionary ideas which are now taken for granted and are represented by everyday acronyms such as SEC (the Securities and Exchange Commission), to oversee the stock market, and FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation), which insures bank deposits. Perhaps most significantly to many today, the Social Security Act was also passed as part of the “New Deal” package, establishing old-age pensions as well as unemployment, workers compensation, and welfare benefits. Branded by many as socialistic, it remains unknown and unknowable whether these maverick maneuvers by the new President opened the door to more and more socialistically-slanted government programs, or whether these simply provided just enough relief to the masses at just the right time so that even more drastic socialistic inroads, even if by means of revolution, were thereby averted.
The name of what eventually became known as the CCC was at first “Emergency Conservation Work,” which was formed by FDR on this date in 1933. Roosevelt wanted to ease unemployment during the Great Depression while simultaneously accomplishing public works that would benefit citizens in general, such as the building of roads and bridges and campground facilities, making the wilderness (the “great outdoors”) more accessible to the masses.
The CCC was called by some “Roosevelt’s Tree Army” because of the environmental benefits of the work they did and perhaps also because FDR had made the statement when introducing his plan that, “the forests are the lungs of our land [which] purify our air and give fresh strength to our people.”
Members of the CCC, mostly young men, were paid $30 per month (the equivalent of $733 in 2025). This sounds low (even assuming the CCC members “only” worked 40 hours per week, this is the modern-day equivalent of a little over $4 per hour), but they were provided with “room and board” (food and housing) and were often also given free supplemental (basic and/or vocational) education and training. A portion of their wages was sent home to their families; they, of course, could supplement that by sending more from what was left of their “disposable income” home.
Members of the Corps signed up for six months, and they often “re-upped” when their “tour of duty” was over.
By the time the CCC ended, in 1942 — when government funds were diverted to war efforts (America having entered World War 2 after the infamous December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor) — over three million men had been employed by the CCC.
Questions: What besides the CCC were elements of FDR’s “New Deal”? What was “The Square Deal”? How many terms as President did FDR serve? How many times was he elected President? When was the 22nd Constitutional amendment ratified, and what does it preclude? Who was Eleanor Roosevelt, and what did she accomplish?
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