The Civilian Conservation Corps w/ Neil Maher
The Road to Now
Benjamin Sawyer
4.8 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 24 February 2025
⏱️ 53 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Just announced: The next Road to Now Live is May 29 at The Hamilton Live in Washington, DC! Click here to get your tickets!
Between 1933 and 1942, the Civilian Conservation Corps enlisted more than three million young men in a project that planted two billion trees, slowed soil erosion on forty million acres of farmland, and enjoyed support across political and geographic divides. In this episode we talk with Neil Maher, author of Nature's New Deal: The Civilian Conservation Corps and the Roots of the American Environmental Movement (Oxford University Press, 2008) about how the CCC helped solidify FDR's New Deal and spread the seeds of environmental activism for generations to come.
Dr. Neil Maher is a Professor of History and Master Teacher in the Federated History Department at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and Rutgers University-Newark. He is also the author of Apollo in the Age of Aquarius (Harvard University Press, 2017). You can find out more about his work at NeilMaher.com.
This is a rebroadcast of episode #274 which aired as The Original Green New Deal: The Civilian Conservation Corps with Neil Mahr on May 29, 2023. This rebroadcast was edited by Ben Sawyer.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Ben Sawyer and this is the Road to Now. |
| 0:08.8 | And before we get to today's guest and topic, big announcement. |
| 0:13.9 | The next Road to Now Live is going to be May 29th at the Hamilton Live in Washington, D.C. |
| 0:19.9 | Tickets just went on sale and you can get them now at live.thehamilton, d.com, or at the link |
| 0:27.0 | that is in this episode description. |
| 0:29.4 | As always, we're going to have some stellar guests on the show. |
| 0:32.5 | We have not announced that lineup yet, but our past guests have included Pete Sousa, |
| 0:37.1 | Emmy Lou Harris, and Jonah Goldberg. |
| 0:38.9 | So that's the caliber of talent we bring to the stage alongside, of course, Bob Crawford, and I'll be there too. |
| 0:45.9 | And I am so excited about this. Bob and I always love doing these live shows. We know you guys listen, |
| 0:51.4 | because we see the numbers, but we don't often get to meet you. So please come out to the show, check it out, and bonus on this one. |
| 0:58.8 | Bob's band, the Avet Brothers, will be performing the following two nights on May 30th and 31st at Wolftrap, which is right up the road in Vienna, Virginia. |
| 1:08.3 | So come for the road to now and stay for the Avet Brothers, or come for the Avet Brothers, but come a day earlier for the road to now and stay for the Avid brothers, or come for the |
| 1:12.7 | Avid brothers, but come a day earlier for the road to now. Either way, we'll be happier |
| 1:17.4 | there. And once again, that is Thursday, May 29th in Washington, D.C. at the Hamilton |
| 1:22.4 | Live. Now for today's show, today's topic is one of the crown jewels of the New Deal, the civilian |
| 1:30.9 | conservation corps. |
| 1:32.3 | This program did so much. |
| 1:34.7 | It alleviated suffering during the Depression, gave young people a place to invest their energy, |
| 1:39.8 | and its benefits are still with us all over the place through the national parks and roads that they built. |
| 1:46.3 | And I just thought that it might be a good time to remember that solid federal programs sometimes yield many times over the resources invested in them. |
| 1:57.5 | You've got to be thoughtful about these things. |
... |
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