Civilization Conservation Corps
We Help the Environment so you don't have to!
What was the purpose of this agency?
The reason that this program was put into effect was mostly because of the environmental distress America was in due to the Dust Bowl, and was thought to be a way to stop the massive amounts of dust flow in the Great Plains. It was also seen as a way to help our economical troubles by hiring hundreds of thousands of unemployed young men.
Accomplishments of this Agency
There were many things that this agency was able to do including planting over 3 billion trees across America, teaching over 40,000 men to read and write through various classes available to take, and most importantly the effects that they had on stopping the Dust Bowl all together.
How did this agency "Stop" the Dust Bowl?
When the Civilian Conservation Corps started to plant trees in the Great Plains, the effects of these trees on the Dust Bowl were many. The trees were able to keep loose soil together, keeping it from getting carried away from the wind, and also provided a way of stopping wind flow in these areas of the United States.
Who Did this Agency Help?
The CCC had many good effects on the environment, but it also helped our economical distress a lot as well. In the first 2 months of the organization's opening, almost 250,000 job slots were filled with young men of the United States. The age group of these adults were between 18 and 25 and each man was given $30 a month ($25 was required to be sent to their families.) This was a big deal at this time because the Great Depression had already taken its toll on most of these young men. This opportunity for work was more than they could ever ask for.
How does this agency still effect us today?
Even though this agency was ended in the July of 1942, this organization still left a great mark on our environment as a whole. Without this agency, many places that were burned down and barren due to war and natural attacks would not be as beautiful as they are seen today. And who knows, if this agency wasn't put together when it was, we might even have had our own Dust Bowl still going on today (and by now it would be on a much larger and more dangerous scale.)
How did the CCC end?
President Roosevelt wanted the CCC to become a permanent agency for the well being of the US environment, but much of the funding and attention that was being given to the agency was being diverted towards the bombing of Pearl Harbor and US involvement in WWII. There were just many other things that were going on in the US at the time and Roosevelt felt as if those immediate problems needed to be dealt with more than the problems going on in our environment.