Camp Preble photograph

Dated September 1937, this photograph shows a dirt road and grassy area at Camp Preble, a Civilian Conservation Corps (C.C.C.) camp in Eaton in Preble County, Ohio. Camp Preble seems to have been started by the Civilian Conservation Corps (C.C.C.) on September 9, 1935. A note on the photograph's reverse reads "View toward main entrance from cap, showing driveway lined with white painted stones. The truck at the left is being loaded with workers returning to their job of weed cutting after their lunch period." The Civilian Conservation Corps was a work relief program established as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal that employed young men, ages 18-25 and later expanded to ages 17-28, with jobs in the natural resources field. This is one of the many visual materials collected for use in the Ohio Guide. In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Works Progress Administration by executive order to create jobs for the large numbers of unemployed laborers, as well as artists, musicians, actors, and writers. The Federal Arts Program, a sector of the Works Progress Administration, included the Federal Writers’ Project, one of the primary goals of which was to complete the America Guide series, a series of guidebooks for each state which included state history, art, architecture, music, literature, and points of interest to the major cities and tours throughout the state. Work on the Ohio Guide began in 1935 with the publication of several pamphlets and brochures. The Reorganization Act of 1939 consolidated the Works Progress Administration and other agencies into the Federal Works Administration, and the Federal Writers’ Project became the Federal Writers’ Project in Ohio. The final product was published in 1940 and went through several editions. The Ohio Guide Collection consists of 4,769 photographs collected for use in Ohio Guide and other publications of the Federal Writers’ Project in Ohio from 1935-1939