United States Department of Labor Emergency Conservation Work: Application Memorandum

The Civilian Conservation Corps existed between 1933 and 1942.  It employed millions of unmarried men between the ages of 17 and 25 on projects in rural areas owned primarily by federal, state, and local governments. The CCC was designed to provide jobs for young men, to relieve families who had difficulty finding jobs during the Great Depression in the United States.  The men served a term of six months, but they could serve up to four terms. They earned $30 a month, $25 of which was sent home to their families.

This is a copy of my maternal grandfather's Application Memorandum dated 15 December 1934.  He wrote down the wrong birth year.  He was born in 1917, not 1916.

My great-grandfather died when my grandfather was nine years old.  When he finished grammar school, my grandfather got a job to help support his family.  At the time he signed this application he had been unemployed for two years.  He left his job as a grocery clerk in December 1932.  He would have been 15 years old at that time.

$25 of his $30 a month earnings while in the CCC was sent home to his mother to help support his family.  Most men in the CCC did the same, naming their mothers as their dependent relative.