Fighting for the Forest: How FDR's Civilian Conservation Corps Helped Save America

When Franklin Roosevelt took office in March, 1933, the United States was on the brink of economic collapse and environmental disaster. Thirty-four days later, the first of over three million impoverished young men were building parks and reclaiming the nation's forests and farmlands. The Civilian Conservation Corps - FDR's favorite program and " a miracle of inter-agency cooperation" - resulted in the building and/or improvement of hundreds of state and national parks, the restoration of nearly 120 million acres of land, and the planting of some three billion trees - more than half the trees ever planted in the United States. Fighting for the Forest tells the story of the CCC through a close look at Shenandoah National Park in Virginia (the Corps's first major project) and the personal stories and work of young men changed their country for the better in Roosevelt's Tree Army, and set the stage for many later environmental movements. Before there was Earth Day, there was the CCC.