The Civilian Conservation Corps — born out of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal at the height of the Great Depression — supplied jobs to more than 77,000 Minnesotans in need. Their work left a lasting legacy, visible today in Minnesota’s thriving forests, state park amenities, and soil conservation practices.
Hundreds of interviews complement oral historian Barbara Sommer’s lively text with personal accounts that animate the history of the CCC in Minnesota as camps were created and projects tackled throughout the state. The “boys” look back — often fondly — at this program, which, for many, was their introduction to the work force and to life away from home.
One man recalls that the “twenty-five dollars ... just made the difference to my mother and the five kids at home.” Another learned a trade from the local men who lent their expertise in masonry to projects at Gooseberry Falls. An African American enrollee tells of the segregated policies enforced in the army-run camps. Workers for the CCC-Indian Division describe reservation projects that included rebuilding a fur trade-era stockade at Grand Portage.
Together, these men give voice to early efforts that advanced the conservation of Minnesota’s natural resources by decades in a few short years. The CCC was indeed a good deal — for the men, and for the state.
The Kabetogama Lake camp opened in 1933 and closed in 1937. Called “one of the best camps in the whole system,” the camp was unique in that all main buildings were connected by underground tunnels, so that enrollees did not have to go outside to move from barrack to barrack or to the rec hall to the administration office to the forestry or army headquarters. The camp’s assigned work area was Kabetogama State Forest. Company 724’s newspaper was the North Star.
While “Hard Work and a Good Deal” uses the state of Minnesota as a case study, it is indicative of the CCC’s effect across the country. The program was a creative answer to two pressing issues — unemployment and the need for conservation — and one that required the cooperation of many government organizations at both the federal and state levels. The book is intriguing for what it tells us about the history of the United States and also for the lessons it offers us for the future.
Mary Poggione of the Minnesota Historical Society Press asks the question: “Would it work today?”
By 1932, 137,000 Minnesota families were signed up for “relief.” Unemployment was at 20 percent, which was higher than the national average. Drought and the Great Depression had hit Minnesota and the rest of the country hard. By 1933, the logging industry had taken its toll on Minnesota — land became barren, and tourism suffered. Soil running into the Mississippi River threatened to clog the lock and dam system. The strain human activities put on the environment was making itself know, and the need for conservation was recognized.
Although the CCC camps operated for only 10 years, 1933-1943, the work they did is still visible today, especially in the extensive state park system.
The book can be read as history, but also as a challenge for modern economic and environmental problems.

“Hard Work and a Good Deal”
By Barbara W. Sommer, founder of the Oral History Association of Minnesota

Published by the Minnesota Historical Society Press, Feb. 2008

$27.95, cloth cover
www.mhspress.org [1]