Civilian Conservation Corps

Roosevelt's administration linked unemployment relief with conservation during the Depression. Congress authorized emergency conservation work on 31 March 1933. Executive Order 6101, issued on 5 April, appointed Robert Fechner director, established an interdepartmental advisory council and transferred an initial ten million dollars.

Congress formally adopted the Civilian Conservation Corps name when extending the programme in 1937. Labor recruited participants, the Army operated camps, and agencies including the Forest Service and National Park Service supervised technical work. Civilian relief thus drew on military logistics and camp organization.

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Initially directed chiefly at unemployed young men, the programme also developed arrangements for veterans and other participants. It supplied accommodation, food, uniforms and medical care. Men sent much of their pay home and could take part in educational activities.

Camps operated across the forty-eight states and in US territories. Work included roads, trails, campgrounds, park buildings, reforestation, insect control, firefighting and stabilization of historic ruins. NPS supervision extended beyond national parks to state and local projects. Approximately three million men participated over the programme's lifetime.

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Access was unequal despite a statutory prohibition on discrimination by race, colour or creed. Black applicants faced exclusion and quotas, and segregated companies commonly had white officers. Fechner ordered separation in 1935. The history of Company 818 at Grand Canyon also records instances of shared trail work within a system increasingly organized around segregation.

The CCC entered the Federal Security Agency in 1939 and increasingly worked on military reservations after 1940. Congress ended it on 30 June 1942, after US entry into the war. Surviving park infrastructure and records preserve both its public works and its unequal administration.

References: [1] [3]