In 1933, as the Great Depression ravaged the United States, President Franklin Roosevelt signed legislation establishing the Civilian Conservation Corps. The CCC’s objectives were to provide jobs and training for hundreds of thousands of young men.
The jobs would be limited to “forestry, the prevention of soil erosion, flood control and similar projects.” Roosevelt stated that “this type of work is of definite, practical value, not only through the prevention of great present financial loss, but also as a means of creating future national wealth.”
Most of the young enrollees were unmarried, unemployed young men between the ages of 18 and 25. Usually, the enrollee’s family was on local relief. The initial enrollment was for six months and the young man could serve up to four periods if he hadn’t found outside employment. They received $30 a month with $25 being sent to his family. Housing food, clothing and medical care were provided.
At a time when unemployment for this age group neared 30%, three meals a day and a bed was an attractive inducement. For many the CCC was their first job.
Enrollees are first sent to processing and conditioning camps. Here they received a physical, vaccinations, and perhaps medical or dental treatment. When fully processed they were sent on to their assigned camps. It was not necessarily a camp in their area or even home state. Some boys were sent several states away. It was an eye-opening experience for young men who may not have travelled more than a short distance from home.
Both the Defense Department and the Department of the Interior supported the CCC program. The military provided the housing, camps, clothing and structure, while the Interior provided the expertise, training and educational components. A CCC Camp resembled an Army camp and was set up in a military fashion with ranks, uniforms, mess halls, and barracks.
When not working, the men could take part in lectures, classes or recreational activities. There were classes in subjects such as lathe turning, agriculture, typing, photography, auto mechanics and mechanical drawing. Some classes prepared men for jobs, others substituted for the high school courses that many of the men had missed. Local business such as Caterpillar offered training through the camps.
Most camps had a newspaper and from these we can get an idea of camp life.
The Muskrat, camp newspaper of the Lebanon, IN CCC camp, said in February 1939: “Do you know that twenty nationalities, sixty-eight cities and towns and five states are represented in this camp at the present time!”
The Muskrat also reported that the CCC company attended lectures with titles such as “Americanism” and “Why Crime Does Not Pay.”
Camp newspapers reported the results of sports competitions against other CCC camps: including baseball, track, boxing, and basketball.
The Linton Chronicle reported that on the movie schedule were films about the Social Hygiene, United States Air Mail Service, The Beaver and His Work, and Species of Birds.
There were activities in the recreation hall such as pool, chess, ping pong and euchre tournaments. The prizes usually consisted of cartons of cigarettes.
Indiana had 56 CCC camps. Much of the work was on public lands, such as state forests or state and national parks. But some work was done on private land. Farmers could apply for their fields to be ditched, for a farm pond to be built or for land to be terraced.
A number of Indiana state parks were built, improved, or expanded by the CCC. Parks where the CCC worked: Brown County, Clifty Falls, Fort Harrison, Indiana Dunes, Lincoln, McCormick’s Creek, O’Bannon Woods, Ouabache, Pokagon, Salamonie Lake, Shakamak, Spring Mill, Turkey Run, and Versailles.
The largest CCC enrollment at any one time was 300,000. During the nine years, 1933-1942, that the program was active over three million young men took part. By 1942 America’s entry into WWII had lessened the effects of the Depression and provided jobs or military service for young men.
CCC was one of the most popular New Deal programs. It helped protect the natural resources of the country and provided important training and work skills to a generation of young men.
Camp 1589 in Lebanon, Indiana, was one of the first camps in Indiana. It was established in July 1935. It’s original tents were replaced with wooden barracks later in the summer. It was a few miles from my mother’s childhood home and she has an early memory of seeing “lots and lots of tents.” Its main work seemed to be in drainage, laying tile in Boone and surrounding counties and clearing ditches.
Corps, Yearbook 1938-1939. Indiana Division, Indiana State Library
Connection: Relatives of mine or my husband with a connection to the CCC.
George Wampler, Robert Acton, and John Crick served with the CCC.
The CCC worked on the farms of James F. Dinsmore, Lorin Ross, and Thomas Shera of Boone County.
CCC Stories
One CCC boy remembered, “There was sometimes friction between the CCC boys and the local boys over girls. The CCC boys could usually scrounge up a dime to take a girl to the movies, but the local boys often couldn’t afford it. They resented us.”
The Tell City CCC reported that the average enrollee gained 12 pounds over his stay in the camp.
The boys at one camp were told they had to clean their barracks. The young men polished their heating stoves with bacon grease and then were driven out into the cold the next day when the temperature dropped and the stoves began to stink.
The $5 per month in the pockets of the CCC men had a positive impact on local economies. In the town of Fremont, Indiana, near Pokagon State Park, some locals complained about the presence of the CCC men in town on weekends. The leader of the CCC camp responded by paying the workers in dollar coins. He then asked a local merchant who had issued a complaint a question: Just how full was his cash register was with these dollar coins? It was so full he couldn’t close it. The CCC men were in town spending their money hand over fist. This helped change the attitude of the locals about the presence of the CCC.
familyconnectionsblog - 