Nature’s New Deal

“Nature’s New Deal: The Great Depression and Franklin Roosevelt in New York’s Hudson Valley”

Neil M. Maher, Public Scholar: New York Council for the Humanities

This multi-media presentation traces the origins of the Civilian Conservation Corps during the

height of the Great Depression, under the leadership of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  New Deal

programs provided jobs for tens of thousands of unemployed New Yorkers.  Its impact on both

the natural environment and local communities of the Hudson Valley reflect Roosevelt’s

commitment to his constituents, and seeded our contemporary environmental movement.