HARD TIMES AND HAPPY DAYS:
THE CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS IN
NORTH CAROLINA
These National Park Service enrollees stand beside signs they made for Doughton Park on the Blue Ridge Parkway. The men are (left to
right) Grover Shepherd, Dale Shepherd, Travis Owens, and Arthur Phipps. (All photographs in this article courtesy of author.)
On a beautiful day in October, 1933, a fine-
looking group of young men were heard singing
this song:
We are the men of the CCC.
We are happy as can be,
We work all day, sleep all night,
We're all OK and feel all right!
What is so remarkable about them is that, just a
very short time before, they and millions like
them were:
Nobody's men,
Unhappy as they could be,
Were never working,
Were doing little but sleeping,
And even that was uncertain.
They were the innocent victims of hard times,
the so-called Great Depression. Yet, in turn, they
were rescued from that sad situation by one of
the most remarkable youth programs ever estab¬
lished — the Civilian Conservation Corps, popu¬
larly known as the CCC.
At a time when those fellows should have
been in school, finding a job, making a home, or
doing similar constructive things, they were out
of school, out of work, out of homes, out on the
streets, out on the prowl, and worst of all, out of
hope.
At the same time, all over the nation, farms,
streams, and forests urgently needed help. More
than half the nation's farms were worn out; ev¬
erywhere soil was washing or blowing away;
forests had been disgracefully abused; and
streams were choking from man's carelessness. In
short, both man and land needed rescuing.
The newly elected president of the United
States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, sensed that
need and acted quickly To take care of the unem¬
ployed young men between the ages of eighteen
and twenty-five, he established the CCC pro¬
gram in March, 1933, and set them to work re¬
claiming the nation's natural resources. To get
into the CCC a candidate, in addition to the age
qualification, had to be an American citizen,
physically fit, unmarried, unemployed, and will¬
ing to enroll for six months at $30.00 per month
(with $25.00 of that being automatically sent
home to support his needy family).
Beginning in April, 1933, CCC camps were
quickly established in every state. In North Caro¬
lina at least sixty of the 100 counties eventually
had one or more camps within their boundaries.
18
•Professor of History. Mars Hill College.
