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Sonearly Sokhom
Professor Tamora Hoskisson
History 1700 Section 22 - American Civilization
April 25, 2014

Based on the Film the Civilian Conservation Corps, Was the New Deal Program Made by
Franklin D. Roosevelt Successful? Why or Why Not?

I do believe the new job program Franklin D. Roosevelt created, the Civilian
Conservation Corps, was very successful in many ways. He believed that putting people to work
was the top priority in getting out of the Great Depression - more important than relief as
Jonathan Alter stated. The CCC was the one job program he put all his time and effort in which
then turn into the first environmentalist. According to Alter, it was the fastest mobilization in
American history going about 250,000 young men after three months of recruiting.
There were those who haven't heard about the new job program. Most were jobless,
hitching rides on boxcars or anything to take them in search for a job that will take them. Some
would stay in the towns they got off on to eat at the soup kitchens, and wait for the next train to
come by and jump on that one. There werent many jobs for anyone at the time. Even the land
wasn't taken care from the lack of knowledge in treating it.
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From what Harley Jolley said, the local welfare department did the recruiting. The
requirements were: a citizen of the United States, must be male (no females, or he-shes),
unemployed and must be willing to work for eight hours a day, a dollar a day for six months.
Alter said there were black people in the CCC making it a huge step from the segregated society
for being in the same camp with white people. Of course there was racism in the air as many
ethnicities were recruited. The CCC taught all of them to get along with each other because they
were living in the same camp. In learning to deal with each other, they all saw how similar they
all were because they had the same reasons of being there. Roosevelt also changed the age
requirement to those older and a World War I veteran.
I really wonder if it was FDR's intention to really bring them together from all the racism
the society had. It could be that he never thought of it that way, but it got the men in the CCC
camps into seeing various ethnicities differently.
Working in the CCC gave all the men a place to sleep, three meals a day, clothes (learn
how to fold and make their beds), shoes, i.e. giving them motivation to keep going on with work.
They had benefits working there; lunch would be brought to them when working in the scalding
heat. FDR gave the men an opportunity to read and write making them not leave illiterate. Jolley
stated that the first thing FDR said, They will be taught to read and write. Nobody, no boy will
leave our camps illiterate. He respected them as a person by giving them the basic needs to be
literate. Vincente Ximenes said, "After dinner, they had vocational type classes available to
persons who wanted them typing classes or plumbing and electrical, that sort of thing." It
gave them the opportunity to learn skills that would pertain to society when leaving the camps.
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Quoting from Jolley, "Now the dollar had enormous precious impact in the 1930s. So
twenty-five dollars sent home, multiplied across the nation by thousands, thats a lot of economic
improvement nationwide." The men from the CCC would send twenty-five dollars home and
spend five dollars for themselves - going into town for food and fun. It turns out that outside of
the camps, there was still racism because those who aren't white would still be seen as inferior. I
found it amazing as the people who got along with each other in the CCC didn't act differently
towards their diverse friends.
The CCC was a very successful job program that was established during the Great
Depression. It recreated the environment (building state and national parks) and improved those
who worked for the CCC. There didn't seem to be anything done wrong by having them create
routes that were accessible to those who want to experience nature. For the future, the CCC
represents the satisfactory of a job making it a new spirit for America to follow, giving them a
chance to actually enjoy life. Franklin D. Roosevelt's top priority in putting jobless individuals to
work helped out greatly in the environment, and the economy.







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Works Cited
Stone, Robert. "American Experience: Civilian Conservation Corps." PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2014.