The Civilian Conservation Corps in Wisconsin

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Nature’s Army at Work

Jerry Apps

Encounter the fascinating history of the young men who found purpose in their labor and built an enduring legacy of environmental stewardship in Wisconsin.

224 pages, 6 x 9, 42 b&w photos
Paperback: $22.95 | ISBN: 978-0-87020-904-8
Ebook: $12.99 | ISBN: 978-0-87020-905-5
Publication Date: 4/22/2019

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Front cover of The Civilian Conservation Corps in Wisconsin

Description

Between 1933 and 1942, the Civilian Conservation Corps, a popular New Deal relief program, was at work across America. Young men lived in rustic CCC camps planting trees, cutting trails, and reversing the effects of soil erosion to preserve the country's natural beauty. In this first comprehensive history of the CCC in Wisconsin, acclaimed environmental writer and historian Jerry Apps explores the work, the impact, and the lasting legacy of this vital program.

Apps guides readers around the CCC's work in the Badger State, from the Northwoods to the Driftless Area, creating a map of where and how more than 125 CCC camps left indelible marks on the landscape. Captured in rich prose are the voices of the CCC boys who, by preserving Wisconsin's natural beauty, discovered purpose in their labor and founded an enduring legacy of environmental stewardship.

Author Bio

Celebrated storyteller and rural historian Jerry Apps was born and raised on a central Wisconsin farm. He was a former county extension agent and professor at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Apps authored more than fifty fiction, nonfiction, and children’s books, including When the White Pine Was King, Every Farm Tells a Story: A Tale of Farm Family Values, The Quiet Season: Remembering Country Winters, and Barns of Wisconsin, all published by the Wisconsin Historical Society Press.

Jerry Apps’s entertaining book, ‘The Civilian Conservation Corps in Wisconsin: Nature’s Army at Work,’ makes it clear just how much the state owes the workers of the CCC. . . . This is a masterful account, clearly written, at turns funny, dramatic, and always informative.