Would Fdr’s Civilian Conservation Corps Work Today?
by How many people are old enough to recollect the Civilian Conservation Corps or as it was abbreviated CCC? No, I was not around at the time; however my father was active in such an agency when he was a young man.
Would FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps work today?
By Joseph Parish
How many people are old enough to recollect the Civilian Conservation Corps or as it was abbreviated CCC? No, I was not around at the time; however my father was active in such an agency when he was a young man. My father grew up in a rather large family with seven siblings and being the eldest of the children he felt it was his responsibility to quit school and help support the family during the depression. It was around this period of America’s depression years that Franklin Delano Roosevelt created the CCC.
The state of Delaware itself was home to eight different camps which were established in Frederica, Georgetown, Leipsic, Lewes, Magnolia, Slaughter Beach and Wyoming. In fact often time captured German soldiers would be brought to the Lewes facility and housed there. Their work involved restoring the coastal areas with which they cheerfully accomplished. Naturally the rules established by the federal government in their cases were that they could not converse with the civilians.
As with the rest of America, the State of Delaware endured a very high rate of unemployment during the depression. As did the other states involved, Delaware also benefited greatly from the New Deal legislation enacted by the representatives in Congress. The CCC was a part of this larger “New Deal”. It was President Roosevelt’s concept that by creating the CCC and several related programs he could provide a means of combating the high unemployment associated with American’s youth. To work in the CCC you had to be an unmarried man from the age of eighteen to twenty-five. Incidentally, many children such as my father would lie in order to obtain the needed work to help the family get by.
One of the main purposes for these camps was to dig a series of drainage ditches as a means of mosquito control. The CCC was also responsible for planting trees, building picnic areas, construction of camp grounds and many rest areas which are still in use around Delaware today.
As we implied above the CCC was not the only program that was established by this legislation. Other programs employed here in Delaware were the Civil Works Administration or the CWA and the Works Progress Administration or WPA. The first program begun in 1933 was the CWA but unfortunately it failed to last very long due to a total lack of proper planning and was discontinued in 1934.
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