A communion with tools: the Civilian Conservation Corps, citizenship, skill development, and the Green New Deal

Abstract

The Great Depression was a period of intense social and cultural upheaval in the United States. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt saw the opportunity to mobilize millions of young men and other citizens in work programs focused on solving a multitude of social issues. Those issues included rising unemployment, degraded health, and the need to conserve human bodies and the lands that sustained them. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was one of the programs FDR hoped would strengthen the nation against the crisis. The goals of the CCC included building better citizens, not just conservation work, the infusion of cash into the economy, and the imparting of job skills. In the CCC camps, enrollees--for the most part, young men aged 17 to 28--learned a multitude of skills that focused on more than just the body, its labor, and resource conservation. The concept of citizenship central to CCC training and work programs was deeply rooted in republican ideology derived from the nation's revolutionary past. Republican beliefs regarding craftsmanship, self-reliance, and hard labor defined the ideal citizen. The CCC adapted those values to the objectives of its programs by adding a range of training and educational programs intended to develop the whole man, the whole citizen. As this thesis argues, the CCC sought to build better citizens on an enduring and vital republican model. Camp newsletters, enrollee's writings and statements, and the final director's report, revealed the process by which the CCC adapted republicanism to address the 1930s economic crisis by creating strong citizens. This thesis further argues that a modernized, updated, and more inclusive version of the Civilian Conservation Corps should be an important part of the proposed Green New Deal.