As immigration to Wisconsin swelled in the 1840s, so, too, did the state’s scientific and technological community, with innovations across industries ranging from agriculture and manufacturing to geology and environmental studies. Among Wisconsin’s first “pioneer …
Works Progress Administration
The Works Projects Administration – An Answer to the Great Depression
In 1929, the United States fell into the deepest economic hole the country has known: the Great Depression. Over the three years following the economy’s collapse in 1929, 3,392 banks across the country closed their …
The Civilian Conservation Corps
In 1933, with nearly a quarter of the civilian labor force unemployed, newly inaugurated President Franklin Delano Roosevelt initiated the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), a touchstone effort in his New Deal program. Under the direction …
Daily Life in the Civilian Conservation Corps
The young men who lived and worked at Camp 657 were typical of Civilian Conservation Corps enrollees throughout the country during the 1930s. The first enrollees were between 18 and 25 years of age, were unmarried and physically fit, and were willing to allot most of their earnings to their families. In 1937, with the CCC’s popularity growing, Congress expanded the age range to 17 to 28 and later extended enrollment to World War I veterans.