Civilian Conservation Corps Created as First Federal Youth Employment Program

President Roosevelt signs the Emergency Conservation Work Act on March 31, 1933, creating the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) as a public work relief program providing employment to young men aged 18-25 from unemployed families. The CCC becomes one of the most popular New Deal programs, eventually employing over 3 million young men who plant 3 billion trees, construct trails and shelters in more than 800 parks nationwide, and complete conservation projects across federal and state lands. Roosevelt considers the CCC a personal triumph, combining his interests in conservation with direct relief for the unemployed.

The program is administered through an unusual partnership between the Department of Labor (which selects enrollees), the War Department (which operates the camps), and the Agriculture and Interior Departments (which supervise the work projects). Enrollees receive $30 per month, of which $25 is sent directly to their families—injecting cash into depression-devastated households while removing young men from unemployment rolls. The CCC establishes camps that operate with quasi-military discipline, housing enrollees in barracks and organizing work in crews, though the program is explicitly civilian in nature.

The CCC demonstrates the capacity for direct federal employment programs to address mass unemployment while accomplishing socially useful work, providing a model that conservatives oppose but cannot attack given its overwhelming popularity. Business interests and fiscal conservatives criticize the program as wasteful and competition with private enterprise, though this opposition gains little traction during the Depression’s depths. The CCC maintains racial segregation in its camps, with Black enrollees restricted to separate camps—a compromise with Southern Democrats necessary for the program’s passage and operation. The program operates until 1942, when wartime employment and military conscription eliminate the unemployment crisis it addressed. Despite proposals for peacetime revival, no permanent CCC-style program is established, as business interests successfully oppose government employment programs that might provide alternatives to private sector low-wage work.