DOCUMENT RESUME ED 266 012 SE 046 389 AUTHOR Paige, John C. TITLE The Civilian Conservation Corps and the National Park Service, 1933-1942: An Administrative History. INSTITUTION National Park Service (Dept. of Interior), Washington, D.C. REPORT NO NPS-D-189 PUB DATE 85 NOTE 293p.; Photographs may not reproduce well. PUB TYPE Reports - Descriptive (141) -- Historical Materials (060) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC12 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Conservation (Environment); Employment Programs; *Environmental Education; *Federal Programs; Forestry; Natural Resources; Parks; *Physical Environment; *Resident Camp Programs; Soil Conservation IDENTIFIERS *Civilian Conservation Corps; Environmental Management; *National Park Service ABSTRACT The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) has been credited as one of Franklin D. Roosevelt's most successful effortsto conserve both the natural and human resources of the nation. This publication provides a review of the program and its impacton resource conservation, environmental management, and education. Chapters give accounts of: (1) the history of the CCC (tracing its origins, establishment, and termination); (2) the National Park Service role (explaining national and state parkprograms and co-operative planning elements); (3) National Park Servicecamps (describing programs and personnel training and education); (4) contributions of the CCC (identifying the major benefits ofthe program in the areas of resource conservation, park and recreational development, and natural and archaeological history finds); and (5) overall accomplishments, 1933-1942 (highlighting the benefits resulting from the program). Full page illustrationscover representative aspects of the program. Appendices contain legislative, management, and product related documents. (ML) *******************x*************************************************** Reproductions supplied by DAS are the best thatcan be made from the original document. ********************************************************************** THE CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS AND THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE, 1933-1942 AN ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY by John C. Paige National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior 1985 3 CONTENTS Acknowledgements v Chapter 1:A Brief History of the CCC 1 Origins 1 Establishment 7 The Early Years 19 The Pre-War Years 29 The War Years and the Conclusion of the CCC 32 Chapter 2:The National Park Service Role 38 National Parks and State Parks Programs 38 Establishment 38 Responsibilities 40 Support Personnel 44 ECW Land Rental or Purchase Authority 46 1936 Consolidation Program 48 Impact on NPS Regionalization 51 Administrative Relationships 52 The Army and the War Department 53 The ECW/CCC Directorate 58 The Forest Service 60 The Embezzlement Issue-- Internal Corruption 64 Chapter 3:The National Park Service Camps 66 Administration 66 Camp Description 70 Enrollment 73 Daily Routine 79 Training and Education 83 Problems and Challenges 88 Desertions 88 Enrollee Behavior and Public Reactions 89 Black Enrollment 93 Chapter 4:Contributions 98 Fire Fighting 98 Insect and Fungus Control 101 Resource Conservation vs. Park Development 103 Technical Assistance 107 Archeological and Historical Work 110 Development of Recreational Demonstration Areas 117 Other Highlights 120 Chapter 5:Overall Accomplishments, 1933-1942 126 iii 4 I- Illustrations: 133 Appendixes 161 Appendix A: Selected Draft Legislation, Legislation,and Executive Orders Affecting tha CCC 162 Appendix B: Selected Items on the Organization of theCCC 178 Appendix C: Selected Items on CCC Camp Locations 181 Appendix D: Certificate Issued to Youths 215 Appendix E: Selected Items Related to Work Accomplishments of the CCC 216 Appendix F: Listing of National Park Service MotionPicture Projects, Fall, 1933-1935 240 Bibliography 243 iv 5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author wishes to thank thefollowing individuals and institutionsfor their assistance in thecompletion of this study:National Park Service Chief Historian Edwin C. Bearss;Barry Mackintosh, Bureau Historian, National Park Service; FrederickC.K. Babb, Chief, Branch ofPlanning, Southeast/Southwest Team,Denver Service Center;Richard Crawford, National Archives, Washington, D.C.;Ruth Larison,Librarian,Rocky Mountain Region, National ParkService; Joan Manson, Kitty Ryan,Nancy Arwood, Jan Petrukitas,Lou Tidd, Christy Fischer, andKay Roush, NationalPark Service,Denver Service Center;and the staff of the NationalArchives, Washington, D.C.;University of Colorado Library, Boulder, Library of Congress.Washington, D.C., and the NationalPark Service Library, Harpers FerryCenter, Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. The author wishes to extendaspecial thanks to Jerome A.Greene, Supervisory Historian, DenverService Center, Southeast/SouthwestTeam, for his assistance in theresearch, and writing of this report. v 6 CHAPTER I:A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS ORIGINS Celebrationsthroughoutthecountryin1983 commemorated the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1933.In cities and national parks, speakers gave talkson the local and national history of the CCC.Former members of the CCC and interested individuals founded organizationsdedicatedtohonoringits work and ideals. The CCC, which existed for nine years and three months, has remained one of the most popular of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal programs.1 The intellectualorigins of the program predate 1933 by more than 80 years and come from another continent. In 1850 the Scottish essayist Thomas Carlyle wrote thatunemployed men should be organized into regiments to drain bogs and work in wilderness areas for the betterment 2 of soc ety. Then in 1910 Harvard philosopher William James publishedan essay entitled "The Moral Equivalent of War," in which he wrote: Now--andthisismy idea--there were,insteadof military conscription a conscription of the wholc youthful population to form for a certain number of years a part of thearmy enlisted against Nature, the injustice would tend to be evened out, and numerous other goods to the commonwealth would follow.The militaryideals of hardihood and discipline would be wrought into the growing fibre of the people; noone would remain blind 1. Conrad L. Wirth and James F. Kieley, "It's 50 Years Since CCC Went into Action,"Courier, The National Park Service Newsletter, 48(April 1983):3. A number of histoFfeveFeenWTriren about the CCCor aspects of the program. The best single volume to date is John A. Salmond's The Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933-1942: A New Deal Case Study (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1967).For a view orfhi CCC from inside the National Park Service,see Conrad L. Wirth's Parks, Politics and the People (Norman:University of Oklahoma Press, 1980). Additional works of interest canbe found in the bibliography of this report. 2. AmericanCouncil onEducation,Youthinthe CCC (Washington, D.C.:GPO, 1942), p. 15. 1 as the luxurious classes now are blind, to man's relations to the globeheliveson,and to the permanently sour and hard foundations of his higher .life.To coal and iron mines, freight trains, to fishingfleets in December, todishwashing, clothes-washing,andwindow-washing,toroad-building and tunnel-making, to foundries and stoke-holes, and to the frames ofskyscrapers,would ourgildedyouthsbedraftedoff, according to their choice, to get the childishness knockedout ofthem, andtocome backintosocietywithhealthier sympathies and soberer ideas.They would have paid their blood-tax, done their own part in the immemorial human warfare against nature; they would tread the earthmore proudly, the women would value them more highly, they would be better fathers and teachers of the following generation. In1915 conservationist George H. Maxwell proposedthat young men be enrolled into a national constructioncorps to help in forests and plains conservation work, to fight forest fires and floods, andto reclaim swamp and desert lands.4 Probably the greatest single impetus for implementingthese ideas was the Great Depression, when unemploymentrose from a little over 3 percent of thecivilianworkforce(in 1929)toover25percent(in1933). Unemployment among the nation's youthrose even faster than general unemployment. Not onlywere many young people unemployed,but approximately 30 percent of those working had only part-time jobs. 5The administration of Herbert C. Hoover responded to the worseningeconomic 3. JohnJ.McDermott,ed.,TheWritingsofWilliamJames: A ComprehensiveEdition (New York:Random House, 1967), p. 669..--- 4. Salmond,pp.4-5;and Arthur C.Ring land,"The Patriotism of Peace," American Forests 40(January 1934):3-4. 5. DanielAaron,Richard Hofstadter, and WilliamMiller,The United States: The History cf a Republic, 2d ed.rev. (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall,Inc.,W67),pp.706,712,713;andMilton Derber, "The New Dee! and Labor,"in The New Deal:The National Level,ed. JohnBraeman, RobertH. Bremner,andDavidBrody rColumbus:Ohio State University Press, 1975), vol. 1,p. 123. 2 crisis by providing additional appropriations for construction of roads and trails in national parks and monuments and other public works, but these relief efforts failed to halt the economic slide of the nation.6 in 1932 RepublicanPresidentHerbertHooverwasopposedinhis reelectionbid by Democratic nominee Franklin Delano Roosevelt. As a young man,Roosevelthadservedaschairmanof the Committee on Forests, Fishand Game inthe New York statelegislature. Inthat position he was able to spearhead the passage of the first New York legislation on supervised