Customer Reviews

American Experience: Civilian Conservation Corps

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I just watched this. On PBS. It's such a vivid representation of the times of my father who was born in this era. All his stories of "why" a dust bowl are here. And how our parks and trails were built, and our saving environmental actions came to being...here. Dad was in Ag. (a Dean of Ag Econ.) He told these depression stories- that also hit his poor farm family hard in East Tenn. They kept going somehow farming, selling hooked rugs to the north. This film represents surviving.
I loved the long unseen images, stories of those that were "just poor" in these times of soup kitchens, and our great depression, and what was "done about it." Learning of society through the words of ordinary people was brilliant to carry this film's story. It fits, you are narrated through the many voices, through how it felt to be there, how getting that work in the CCC offered hope and put desperate people into productive solutions. Dad always said something I heard here, it was as close to a possible revolution as he ever wanted to come to in our country. If you watch these times and how Roosevelt responded, the forces that opposed it, how the CCC came to be, it's there.
People were reduced so low, this shows you this and builds a compassionate response. That is there too and what might have been, and how it was going in countries across the oceans too, that is there. In the film someone says the seeds were there to bring the country into complete revolt....against this we see what FDR built, this film shows what can be. It seems so relevant now-and I propose it is what we need now. Understanding the missions and work of the CCCer's, built with so many out of work- now it seems we also need a dynamic work movement- seems so essential to consider a context that puts this into a national model of hope and healing. Heal the man, heal the land, the film says was the slogan of this conservation movement. It seems so important we listen now. As the film says of Roosevelt, the perfect match of man and moment, this New Deal was made. Work more important than relief. Watching the CCC develop here...its design, its emphasis on conservation, the vision, it really must be watched to renew your understandings.

It's going to be my Christmas present to my father along with a Jimmie RodgersJimmie Rodgers: The Life and Times of AmericaÂ's Blue Yodeler (American Made Music Series)RCA Country Legends recording because he loves him.

hello thank you so much for this dvd. I bought it for a wonderful man at the nursing home in his 90's who remembered when he was in one of these work camps when the country was going down in the past.

I played it for him yesterday and it was worth the price of admission. I saw it on channel 11 PBS program.

Thank you so much. This was an american experience that has been forgotten. It really shows the wisdom beyond his years (FDR).
Thank you again.

I saw this program a few years ago and was inspired to find and watch it again since beginning a class about society and the environment in history. Again, I was deeply moved at this account of Americans working together to overcome adversity. The CCC was such a healing effort for both the people and the land here in America. Today's crises may be different but we are in no less need of healing.

Agriculturally, we face GMO tragedies, epic use of pesticides and an economic infrastructure that has disabled most farms from operating without subsidies. While not at 25% as in the 30's, unemployment is unacceptably high. To watch this program makes one ache for another such undertaking and turnaround here in the United States.

Additionally, it is amazing to look at the number of CCC camps that were in every state in the nation (42 here in Vermont, 108 in Michigan....) where otherwise unemployed, literally starving young men were working in fair conditions, making a fair wage and being well fed and cared for. If you go out and enjoy state parks, hiking trails and other natural wonders, know that most of it was created by this incredible effort.

I found this movie uplifting and very interesting to watch.

My dad was panning for gold to try to feed us. With out the CCC I don't know what would have happened. Dad went.into the USFS right after the CCC. He spent the rest of his happy life there. I'm so thankful for FDR. I was horrified to find that my Grandson hear nothing about the CCC in High School. That is why I ordered this Program.

Wept thru beginning of this amazing footage, staring into 1930s hardscrable, hungry fellow American eyes and faces as they queued up for soup kitchens or to jump a RR car -- looking for work. Also intently watching the numbers floating by of how many Conservation Corps camps in each state -- and US Territories -- I discovered my Dust Bowl home-state of Oklahoma hosted 52 alone.
But it never dawned on me before, these 2 to 3 million men (18- 25 years of age) - working for $30/month on 3 'square meals' per day -- were our countries "first environmentalists". The word itself -- "environment" -- didn't even exist until Franklin Delano Roosevelt stepped up to the plate as our enlightened president.
What a heritage he and his men left for future generations -- seeding and salvaging our nation's forests and topsoil & building and conserving places like Camp David and Carlsbad Cavern, along with multiple, memorable state parks and cabins.
Yet perhaps their most significant endowment manifests in a trans-generational 'ethic of conservation' that still abides -- if in need of some inspiration, such as embodied in this instructive documentary. The good news: we've already done it once before.