Friday, October 02, 2009

Ken Burns PBS series #5




Today there are some similarities with the time period covered by the fifth episode of the PBS series The National Parks: America's Best Idea by Ken Burn.  The depression of 1930's has been compared to today's economic woes.  There are plenty of differences but we are in a period of higher unemployment.  The National Park Service played a job creation role in the great depression.  

FDR created the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in 1933.



My dad and his younger brother joined the CCC in the late 1930's.  Both of them still in their teens.  I wish I knew more about their adventures in the CCC's.  They have both passed on now.  From the stories, I believe they were at camps in Washington state.
Episode 5 spends some time with a few personal stories of past CCC members.  It was run like the military and from the pictures I've found on the web, it looked like hard work.
From the PBS site about this episode:
"In all, more than 3 million men found work with the Civilian Conservation Corps during the course of the Depression. Members of the CCC were responsible for building more than 97,000 miles of fire roads in national forests, combating soil erosion on 84 million acres of farmland, and planting 3 billion trees."
 Millions of men - billions of trees  -  all in less than a decade.




From just the little I know, I say GOOD JOB !

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Good job indeed! That's pretty cool that you get to see a little bit into your father and uncle's younger life.

Anonymous said...

interesting - those guys did alot to make the parks better.

Bill Lisleman said...

john and/or steve - how do you keep track of who left the comment? Anyway, thanks for dropping off a comment. It was interesting to learn more about that time period, but it also kinda teased me into wanting to know even more detail. - thanks

Fantastic Forrest said...

I love the CCC. We have a lot of great locations around here, including Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood, built by the WPA, but there are also little CCC places. Some are even available for rent - try recreation.gov.

Yay, FDR! My hero.

Fantastic Forrest said...

I love the CCC. We have a lot of great locations around here, including Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood, built by the WPA, but there are also little CCC places. Some are even available for rent - try recreation.gov.

Yay, FDR! My hero.

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