Event: FDR Library-Lecture and Signing with Douglas Brinkley: FDR & CCC, July 9 at 7 PM

From the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum:

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT: 

THE RENEWAL OF AMERICA

A lecture & book signing
Tuesday, July 9, 7 p.m.
Henry A. Wallace Visitor Center
FDR Presidential Library, Hyde Park, NY

The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum is pleased to present FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT: THE RENEWAL OF AMERICA, a lecture and book signing with Douglas Brinkley, Professor of History at Rice University, Historian for CBS News, and author of THE WILDERNESS WARRIOR: THEODORE ROOSEVELT AND THE CRUSADE FOR AMERICA. The program will be held at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, July 9, 2013 in the Henry A. Wallace Visitor and Education Center at the FDR Presidential Library and Home. Following the presentation, Dr. Brinkley will be available for a book signing and several of his books will be available for sale in the New Deal Store. Attendees can visit the Library's new permanent exhibition until 10:00 p.m..-- free of charge -- after the program. This event is free and open to the public.

FDR visits with Civilian Conservation Corps workers at the CCC's Big Meadows camp in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, August 12, 1933.  Franklin D. Roosevelt Library Archives

 During the presentation, Dr. Brinkley will discuss Franklin D. Roosevelt and New Deal conservation, with an emphasis on FDR's creation of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). President Roosevelt personally devised the idea for the CCC, a program to put young men aged 17-24 -- many from urban areas -- to work on conservation projects in healthy rural environments. Within three months the Corps enlisted nearly 250,000 young men. They were assigned to CCC camps around the nation.

During its 9-year existence, the CCC employed nearly 3 million men. Eleanor Roosevelt championed the CCC and, with her strong backing, a much smaller program was also created for unemployed young women. The CCC planted more than two billion trees, fought forest fires, built trails, campgrounds, and reservoirs, and aided soil conservation programs. It became one of the New Deal's most popular and successful programs. Its legacy remains today in the facilities it constructed throughout America's national forests, parks, monuments, and wildlife refuges.

This event sounds spectacular. If you're in the Hyde Park area, I'd rush to this event if you can. Douglas Brinkley is an excellent historian with a pretty impressive body of work.

Here's a video of him talking with John Stewart about his TR book, Wilderness Warrior. (Note to publishers: I'd love to review this book!)