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Book Review
| Nature's New Deal: The Civilian Conservation Corps and the Roots of the American Environmental Movement. By Neil M. Maher. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. 316 pp. Notes, index, photos, maps, tables, and political cartoons. Cloth $35.00
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| In Nature's New Deal Neil M. Maher brings us a topic that all American historians and many Americans know something about, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and its role in President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal. In so doing, however, he demonstrates that the CCC was much more than men in the woods and on the plains growing strong while planting trees, fighting fires, and conserving soil. In fact, this book shows us that while we might know some of the nuts and bolts of the CCC and understand its popularity, in fact we have little understanding of the critical role it played in American environmentalism in the mid-twentieth century. The heart of this book is the assertion that the CCC fundamentally remade American environmentalism. Maher successfully argues that not only did the organization become more environmentally conscious over the course of its life, but also that demonstration projects, education and promotional efforts, and even resistance to the CCC propelled environmentalism forward, making the movement stronger and more complex in the process. |
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Maher does a nice job explaining the CCC—the organization of the corps, its functions, its shifting missions and goals. Moreover, the author shows how President Roosevelt employed the CCC strategically to build support in necessary regions in order to promote the New Deal and get reelected. The very popularity of the CCC provided support for FDR's expanding welfare state, according to Maher. Driving the CCC and therefore, the New Deal, was a conservation ethic that sprung from multiple sources in American culture: the progressive conservationists, the influences of both Gifford Pinchot and Frederick Law Olmsted, the Boy Scouts, and the childhood and governorship of FDR. The original missions of the CCC were to conserve forests and soil; from this sprung so much more. Those young men planting trees and creating erosion control projects learned by doing and also gained educations in conservation in classrooms and in their evening readings from the camps' library collections of magazines and books strongly emphasizing conservation and ecology. Furthermore, the demonstration projects and media publicity associated with them educated Americans on the practices and benefits of conservation measures. |
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The reader might begin this book assuming that the environmental importance of the CCC stemmed from its restoration of habitat and its success in building support for conservation. This is generally accurate but Maher offers a more interesting and sophisticated argument. The CCC rendered the environmental movement more complex and energized it in its opposition to the corps. Key environmental thinkers and leaders such as Aldo Leopold and Bob Marshall originally evinced delight in the CCC mission of habitat restoration but became critics of what they considered a singular focus on resource production and limited species planting and recreation over the need to preserve and create complex ecosystems and protect wilderness areas from overuse. Not only were they vocal in their criticism but they helped organize active opposition. Moreover, CCC activities stimulated opposition throughout the country from organizations as diverse as the Izaak Walton League to the National Park Service seeking to protect complex ecosystems and habitat from overly simple fire suppression and resource production measures. According to Maher, the National Wildlife Federation was formed by a coalition of conservationists concerned with the impact of New Deal programs environmentally, including CCC activities. There were numerous other local battles across the nation to protect complex ecosystems from CCC projects with an increasing emphasis on protecting wild places. As these efforts grew, the idea of wilderness gained prominence in the national media and secured a foothold in the American consciousness. |
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