Civilian Conservation Corps: In and Around the Black Hills by Peggy Sanders

The Civilian Conservation Corps was established on March 31, 1933 by President Franklin Roosevelt as part of his efforts to pull the country out of the Great Depression. The program lasted until July 2 1942, successfully creating work for a half-million unemployed young men across the nation. They were housed, fed, clothed, and taught trade skills while working in forests, parks, and range lands. Paid one dollar a day, each man was required to send home $25 a month; the program provided work for young men as well as support to thousands of families.

South Dakota was home to more than 50 camps over the nine-year time span with projects in areas ranging from constructing bridges and buildings in state parks, thinning trees in national forests to mining rock, crushing it into gravel, and graveling roads. Although this volume is set in South Dakota, the photos are representative of camps and men from all over the nation who served in the CCCs.

Paperback
130 pages
ISBN 9781531618414

About the author: Using over 200 vintage images, author Peggy Sanders takes readers back in time to the campus and escapades of the Civilian Conservation Corps. Mrs. Sanders is the author of two other books from the Images of America series, Fall River County and Hot Springs, (SD) and Wind Cave National Park, (SD). 

Image description: The cover features a sepia-toned photograph of a truck in the woods with a bunch of people on the top and one person on each side of the truck. The title is printed in a black label at the top of the cover, and the author's name is printed in a label at the bottom of the cover.