With over 13 million unemployed during the Great Depression, the country's new president in 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt, as one of his programs to get people back to work, established the Civilian Conservation Corps. The CCC, as it became known for short, grew into one of FDR's most successful and popular programs. Underfed young men throughout the country enlisted in the CCC and were bused to camps in national and state forests, where they were employed making the forests accessible to visitors. In Rhode Island, seven camps were established, from Primrose/Woonsocket to the north, Escoheag/Beach Pond to the west, and Burlingame/Westerly to the south. Rhode Islanders should be grateful that Martin Podskoch, one of the nation's authorities on the CCC, has turned his talents to Rhode Island. In this remarkable and authoritative book, Podskoch rediscovers the wonderful stories of CCC efforts undertaken by Rhode Islanders and fills the book's pages with photographs that bring the period back to life. Some of the sites can be visited today. This book is a real treat for readers to enjoy.

The biography of an Adirondack legend whose tireless efforts are credited with much of today's preservation policies in the Adirondacks.

For decades, the vast Adirondack wilderness has beckoned. Some, having sampled the treasury of Adirondack art and literature, are drawn by its spectacular beauty; many are lured by its year-round sports and recreational opportunities; others are enticed by its health-giving qualities-the clear air, sparkling waters, and refreshing woodlands. The Adirondacks: 1931-1990 celebrates the years in which the six-million-acre preserve truly became a people's park. With some two hundred rare images, the book includes views of the Winter Olympics held at Lake Placid in 1932, attended by thousands from the world over. It applauds the American boys working in the CCC camps in the Adirondacks during the Great Depression. It follows the steamboats as they ply Lake George and the Fulton Chain and other lakes, as well as the railroads as they bring in more and more visitors. It traces the rise and fall of the grand hotels and their successors: the cabins, motels, cottages, second homes, and campsites of the motoring public. It highlights the music, the architecture, the animals, the crafts-the more recent history of the Adirondack culture.

Reima Ratti, created art to lift himself and those around him out of the gloom of the 1930's Great Depression. His artistic contributions to the CCC, the most popular New Deal work program and greatest conservation movement in US history, placed him on a path of history. Sixty+ pieces of Ratti CCC art illustrate this historic New Deal art story.