Eighty years ago this week, President Franklin D.
Roosevelt launched the Civilian Conservation Corps — a pioneering national jobs
program that heralded a major step forward in the nation's recovery from the
Great Depression. An early hallmark of Roosevelt and Secretary Frances Perkins'
visionary New Deal, the CCC provided jobs to unemployed young men in rural
conservation projects —planting trees, managing fires, carving out roads and
trails, and building infrastructure for parks and wilderness areas. The program
exemplified interdepartmental collaboration, with the Labor Department
recruiting young workers for the program through a newly formed National
Re-Employment Service (a quarter of a million enrollees joined the corps in
just two months). When the program ended in 1942, millions of young men had
participated. The legacy of the CCC endures today, not only in the lasting
contributions it made to the stewardship of our natural heritage, but in the
capacity for the Labor Department and others to provide employment and training
programs.
(From the USDOL Newsbrief April 4, 2013)
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