The Great Depression

I had a vision of another Great Depression today, a modern one, where millions were jobless, homeless, and living like refugees. Its not so farfetched, but its a humbling portrait of  people who are destitute. What if?

My parents lived through the G.D. and they didn't seem to suffer mostly because they were children, but then, poverty was a way of life.  They had little. There were no TVs, no cars, no consumer electronics, and many people still heated their homes with coal or wood stoves. 

The one story I do remember, which chills me to this day, is when my grandfather whom I never knew, told my father to leave home shortly after his 16th birthday, a custom all too common for families with many children. My father dropped out of high school and joined the Civilian Conservation Corps, a New Deal program to build highways across America. He went to Utah, working in youth camps, and later joined the Navy.  He went to Cuba, to the Panama Canal, and almost made it D-Day, when through divine intervention, he suffered an accident which put a steel plate in his head, and kept him in a coma for most of 1944.  His ship sailed to the Normandy invasion without him.

When he woke up, the doctors and nurses were shocked, fully expecting him to die, and he was sent to Bethesda Naval hospital for breakthrough neurosurgery. He became a disabled vet and discharged from the Navy.  He married my mother, and had four children.  He worked for thirty five years as a machinist and managed to hold on to age 62, when he was felled by a heart attack.  

CCC

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a work relief program for young men from unemployed families, established on March 21, 1933, by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. As part of Roosevelt's New Deal legislation, it was designed to combat unemployment during the Great Depression. The CCC became one of the most popular New Deal programs among the general public and operated in every U.S. state and several territories. The separate Indian Division was a major relief force for Native American reservations.

Initial opposition to the program was primarily from organized labor, but as the unemployment rate fell, so did the need for the CCC.[1] The CCC lost importance as the Depression ended; and following the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan in 1941, national attention shifted away from domestic issues in favor of the war effort. Rather than formally disbanding the CCC, the 77th United States Congress ceased funding it after the 1942 fiscal year, causing it to end operations. - Wikipedia

America was in the grip of the Great Depression when Franklin Delano Roosevelt was inaugurated in March of 1933.  More than twenty-five percent of the population was unemployed, hungry, and without hope.  The NewDeal programs instituted bold changes in the federal government that energized the economy and created an equilibrium that helped to bolster the needs of citizens.  

Out of this economic chaos emerged the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC).  Its purpose was two-fold -- conservation of our natural resources and the salvage of our young men.  The CCC is recognized as the single greatest conservation program in America and it served as a catalyst to develop the very tenets of modern conservation.  The work of America's young men dramatically changed the future and today we still enjoy a legacy of natural resource treasures that dot the American landscape.

Nearly Three Billion trees were planted to help reforest America 

Modern tenants of conservation are an outgrowth of the conservation work begun by the CCC.

Forest fire fighting methods were developed under the CCC program to meet the needs of controlling wild fires that kept the land from healing and naturally restoring the watersheds.  

The modern service corps movement in America today is founded on the  Corps concept of the CCC.  Nurtured by CCC alumni and their supporters, modern conservation corps are expanding and contributing to American youth and culture. 

Constructed public roadways and buildings. Today citizens still drive on roadways built by the men of the CCC.  Vast expanses of public land are connected through scenic byways and fire trails.  Lodges, cabins, picnic pavilions, and many other recreational structures still stand as a testament to the craftsmanship and design of the CCC program.  One of the most recognizable examples of a scenic road in the central eastern United States is the Blue Ridge Parkway and Shenandoah National Park. 

Soil conservation was taught to private citizen as well as implemented on government land. The dust bowl of the Great Plains hampered agricultural output for many years.

The development of the infrastructure of the outdoor recreational system is attributed to the CCC program.  Most state park systems we started through the CCC program with an estimated 800 parks constructed across the nation.  The National Parks and the National Forest systems received great benefit and still proclaim the vast legacy of CCC labor.  

Built and operated fish hatcheries which replenished the species killed by unfavorable conservation practices.

Reintroduced wildlife to depleted area. In many areas wildlife was hard hit due to the devastation of their habitat.  Some camps we involved in  research and many more were tasked with the reintroduction and monitoring of wildlife.

Military style camp life developed citizens that supported the WWII manpower effort.

The boys supported their families by earning $30 monthly through the distribution of a $25 financial allotment to home.

Advanced the standard of living in surrounding communities due to the infusion of revenue amounting to as much as $5,000 a month.

  http://www.ccclegacy.org/