What they did before the C.C.C. was their job

Columns 28 & 29 on the 1940 census concern an individual's "occupation" and "industry" respectively. As noted in a previous post some camps detailed an occupation for each individual enumerated at that camp. In other cases, this information is provided when the record of an enrollee fell upon one of the two entries located on each census page marked for collection of additional data. This additional information would appear at the bottom of the census page. To have this position of occupation and industry recorded instead of the more standard reference to their role in the camp is rare and, like level of education, offers a glimpse at the background of the individual enrollee. Most times enrollees are associated strictly with their then current work title, so terms like "laborer" or "field laborer" and "soil erosion" or "C.C.C." are typical as are other occupations around the camp and project such as "truck driver", "cook", "carpenter", "clerk", and "steam shovel operator".

At Neodesha, KS where Co. 784 was stationed, a group of 23 young men who were new enrollees were enumerated shortly after their arrival at camp. Eleven were identified simply as a "laborer" for either "farm" or "odd jobs", probably indicative of the youthfulness and relative inexperience of this group of men. The remainder included various occupations such as "deliveryman" for a "retail dairy", a "truck driver" in "road construction", a "blacksmith" in a "machine shop", a self-employed "carpenter", a "newsboy" for an El Dorado newspaper, and two musicians in Kansas orchestras.

Another group of 23 veteran enrollees, in Co. 4719 near Ottawa, KS exhibited a more varied list of occupations including seven identified as "laborer" for a variety of industries including "packing house"or "packing ind.", "farming",  "R.R.", and "contract". Others include a "lawyer", a "train messenger" for an "ex[press] agency" an "electrician" from a Topeka, KS powerplant, a "cafe operator", two farmers (and one listed "agri."), and two coal miners. Apart from the above mentioned reference to the railroad, a "fireman" and a "brakeman" are also associated with the railroad industry. Representing the oil industry are a "pipe fitter" and an "oil driller", and auto industry includes a "mechanic" and a "machinist". The list is dominated by blue collar type jobs that these men who were typically in their 40s and 50s, the backbone of an experienced labor force, might be expected to hold.

Finally, down at Parsons, KS, the 51 African-American junior enrollees enumerated for Co. 4717 are almost all identified as "field laborer" in "C.C.C. Camp" with others noted to be "cook", "truck driver", "mechanic", and "carpenter" that would fit with roles in the typical camp. A small group however have occupations listed that wouldn't seem to be part of a standard camp even though they are listed as "C.C.C. Camp". These odd jobs include "dry cleaner", "bell hop", "paper carrier", "musician", two listed for "housework", and three identified as "chauffeur". It is interesting that aside from musician, the occupations are all service-oriented positions.

Ultimately, the 1940 census data offers intriguing, if limited, glimpses of individual enrollees. While it is unfortunate that there isn't more information available for the various camps where more complete groupings of enrollees joined by their common link to the Civilian Conservation Corps would provide abundant ground for study, there are still excellent details that can be gleaned from the data with some investigation. I hope that this recent series of posts focusing on the 1940 census has demonstrated that.

C.C.C. Enrollee Education- Evidence From The 1940 Census

Another piece of useful information from the 1940 census lies in column 14 "Highest Grade Of School Completed." Using the 1940 census information available from a limited number of Kansas camps, we can see notable differences between the level of education listed among the older generation veteran C.C.C. enrollees when compared to that of the younger cohort of junior enrollees. This distinction is indicative of the "high school movement" that became the new paradigm for public education beginning in the early 1900s. While in the "common school" of the latter half of the 1800s, students rarely attended school past age 14, having attended up to six years of schooling by that time. By the time of the 1940 census, a public school system comprised of elementary, junior high, and high school levels was common in both urban and rural settings. Whereas in 1910 only 20% of 15 to 18 year olds attended high school and slightly less than 10% graduated, by 1940 those numbers had increased to nearly 75% attendance and more than 50% graduating (Goldin & Katz, 2008:195).

Our cohort of Kansas veterans comes from Co. 4718 (Spivey, Kingman County) and Co. 4719 (Ottawa, Franklin County) while the junior enrollees come from Co. 784 (Neodesha, Wilson County) and Co. 4717 (Parsons, Labette County). These companies are the only ones for which significant numbers of enrollees were identified in the enumeration at the camp and/or adjacent areas (as is the case with Co. 4719). The results are presented in the table below.

Highest Grade Level Achieved-  Kansas C.C.C. Camp Sample (Based 1940 Federal Census Data)
Grade	Company #4718-V	Company #4719-V	Company #784	Company #4717-C
Third	1	3
Fourth	5	4
Fifth	4	2
Sixth	5	3	1	1
Seventh	8	8	1	4
Eighth	37	34	3	10
Freshman-HS	3	3	4	7
Sophmore-HS	5	4	4	10
Junior-HS	4	2	1	10
Senior-HS	5	6	9	8
College Undergraduate	4	4	1
College Graduate	1	1
College Post-Graduate	1
TOTALS	83	74	24	50

The totals and distributions among the two veteran companies is very comparable suggesting that the totals may well be representative of veteran C.C.C. companies in general. A noticeable ceiling is found at the eighth grade level in both groups of veterans with right at 45% of the men completing eighth grade and around 28% having ended their education prior to this point. This total of 73% of veteran C.C.C. enrollees having completed no higher than 8th grade can be contrasted with the 73% of junior enrollees overall who had attended at least one year of high school. Over half of that number (54%) had completed three years of study and 33% had earned a diploma. Only one junior enrollee had continued on to complete any college while about 7% of veterans had attended college. By comparison, no junior enrollees had failed to complete at least 6th grade while 12% of veteran members had less than a 6th grade education.

Another point I found interesting is that while 80% of the junior enrollees in the Co. 784 had attended school beyond the 8th grade, only slightly fewer African-American enrollees (70%) had likewise. Both had comparable numbers that had completed at least three years of high school (58% v. 51%). A distinction among these two groups comes in the rate of high school graduation where 53% of Whites versus only 23% of African-American enrollees had completed their high school studies. This distinction probably has more to do with the fact that only 4 enrollees (17%) in Co. 784 were age 17 while 24 of the young men (48%) in Co. 4717 were 17 (including 7 of those who had attended three years of high school). Perhaps these differences are an indication of the relative level of need that their respective families were experiencing and their response to this as young men who might provide much needed additional support to their families. It seems apparent that educational opportunities for both young African-Americans and Whites was distinctly higher than that of their parents generation represented by the C.C.C. veterans.

2008  Goldin, Claudia Dale and Lawrence F. Katz
          The Race Between Education and Technology. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Kansas C.C.C. Camps in the Census: A Closer Look

In looking at the 1940 census data for the Kansas C.C.C. camps, the first thing one notices is that several don't have anyone enumerated and most have only a handful of seemingly random people identified. These camps were all in full operation at the time and therefore would have had a full complement of camp officers and project staff as well as up to 200 or so enrolled men present. The camps were designated as unique enumeration districts in the census, just as small communities in townships would have been set apart. The intent was there to identify and document the camp occupants, but in no case do the numbers come close to doing this. Why? Well...

Twelve of the Kansas camps were comprised of junior enrollees, young men between the ages of 17 and 25. Standard procedure appears to have been to enumerate junior enrollees at home as opposed to the C.C.C. camp except in rare circumstances. For example, at the end of the record for Company 4717-C at Parsons, KS where 55 enrollees (including 4 from camp overhead) were counted, the enumerator, and company commander, Fred L. Eistrup, noted:

"Individual census reports were not sent out to parents from the C C Camp #4717 by the commander on the above 55 persons as they were brought to this camp the first week of April and stated they had not been enumerated elsewhere."

From this short comment, it is clear that part of the process included sending census reports to the homes of the enrollees to ensure the men were counted. In situations where new enrollees had apparently not already been enumerated at home, provision was made to do so at the camp. In Labette County at Parsons, a sizable group is recorded during the time shortly following a regular C.C.C. enrollment period, likewise at Neodesha in Wilson County where Company 784 enumerated 23 men on April 29 that were noted to not be in the C.C.C. at the end of that March (answer to question on Line 22 of the census record).  In Nemaha County where the enumeration date is in June, only three men were listed, each with the title "New Worker".

In other searches, I ran across C.C.C. junior enrollees scattered throughout the census in their parent's households. For example- James and John Helme ages 20 and 18 respectively in the the home of their mother in the South-Central Kansas community of Zenda. Both are listed as "Laborers" for "Soil Erosion", among the most common identifiers for C.C.C. workers in the state. In nearby Peters Township, 17 year old Henry Taggart is noted as absent (AB) and at "CCC Camp, Seneca Kansas". Others include Edgar Crampton, age 23, listed with his parents and younger brother in rural Morris County; LeRoy Banks, age 19, a "Laborer" for "Reforestation Project" in the home of his parents and younger siblings at Wellington; and African-American Frederick White, age 19, a "Laborer" for "C.C.C. Camp" counted among his parents and siblings in Ottawa, just to name a few.

Only two veteran camps were in operation in 1940- Company 4718 near Spivey in Kingman County and Company 4719 near Ottawa in Franklin County. The Spivey camp enumeration was the largest among of the Kansas camps with 88 individuals represented. Of this number, 77 of the men (87.5%) are single, widowed, or divorced. In other words they were by themselves for the purposes of census enumeration and would not be expected to have been counted elsewhere. Similarly, at Ottawa, only one of the 23 enumerated men (4.3%) was married. A search of adjacent enumeration districts in this case identified numerous married enrollees who were counted within their household along with a wife and often, other dependents. Elsewhere around the state, searches outside of the camp occasionally turned up associated members, most often camp or project leadership, all enumerated as head of a household that had been relocated to the project locale.