INTRODUCTION

In the entire field of CCC-issue clothing, no subject is more vexing than footwear.

CCC boys were hard on their boots, and an enrollee could expect to go through two or three pair in a single six-month term. Unsurprisingly, surviving original examples with ECW or CIV contract stamps are vanishingly rare. Shoes wore out, and new shoes were issued to wear out in their turn; remaining inventory at the end of the program in 1942 was recycled for the war effort.

Even so, by closely studying images of CCC shoes in camp and in the field, comparing them to known US Army footwear, and gleaning published reports for hints, we can make some tentative identifications. To help us do so, a review of US Army footwear before and during the CCC years is in order.

TRENCH SHOES

1918 "PERSHING" SPECIFICATION 1257, 1258, 1269, & 1271

1918 "VICTORY" SPECIFICATION 1351 & 1352

SERVICE SHOES: 1920s

SERVICE SHOE, SPECIFICATION 412-2-9A Dated 10 April 1920

SERVICE SHOE, SPECIFICATION 9-6A - 9-6C, DATES UNKNOWN, 1920s-1930s

SERVICE SHOES: 1930s-1940s

GARRISON SHOE, QM SPECIFICATION 9-35A CIRCA 1933

SERVICE SHOE, "TYPE I," SPECIFICATION 9-6F Dated 21 November 1941

SERVICE SHOE, "TYPE II," SPECIFICATION 9-6F Dated 21 November 1941

CCC SERVICE SHOES

QM SPECIFICATION 9-35A GARRISON CIRCA 1933

QM SPECIFICATIONS 9-6C - 9-6F FIELD, VARIOUS DATES CIRCA 1933-1942

From 1933 to the end of the program in 1942, service shoes or close derivatives vastly outnumber any other style of footwear in contemporary CCC images.

Textual reports confirm what photographic evidence suggests: the Army-pattern service shoe was the default footwear of the CCC. In his 1934 report on the first year of the CCC, Director Fechner wrote that "Emergency Conservation Work purchases in this field were naturally large, due to the necessity for clothing and keeping clothed a large number of men engaged in hard work... . Among the shoe purchases are noted approximately 1,761,000 pair of service shoes." The Oregon Department of Forestry's Forest Log newsletter noted in 1933 that "Purchasing now is being made by the War Department and the technical services working with the CCC. Clothing and supplies are purchased by the Army, while work equipment is bought by the technical services. Included in the list of clothing is an item of 1,077,000 pairs of regular service shoes which already have been purchased at an average cost of $2.65 per pair. To date, the CCC has worn out or is wearing its 7,000,000th pair of shoes, together with 250,000 pairs of leather boots."

Of all my discoveries in researching this handbook, none has been more surprising to me than the central place of the service shoe in the CCC wardrobe. As a park ranger, I routinely wear modern duty, work, and logging boots of every description. Prior to undertaking this project, I simply assumed without evidence that the footwear of the CCC was somewhat similar to these modern work boots.

This is not the case. Whether they were planting trees, building dams, checking soil erosion, constructing park cabins, or jackhammering roads out of western hardrock, the CCC boys did the bulk of their manual field work in service shoes which more closely resembled a modern leather dress shoe than a work boot.

Below are images of surviving service and garrison shoes with CCC contract marks, and also of service-style shoes worn by enrollees in the field as work wear. While many of these shoes were no doubt true russet leather US Army issue, it seems probable that during the mobilization years of 1933-1934 the Quartermaster Corps would also have accepted brown or black boots made to civilian patterns, so long as they corresponded generally to the service shoe construction and style.

SERVICE SHOES, CONTINUED: THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE RUBBER TAPS

As we have seen above, the Quartermaster Corps outfitted Army's US infantryman with the original 1920s-style leather-soled and stacked-leather-heel field service shoes right through 1941. In that year, the army conducted the most massive peacetime maneuvers in its history, the famed Louisiana Maneuvers of 1941. Reports of premature failure of the soles of the service shoes worn by troops in these maneuvers, combined with the soaring cost of leather and the need to conserve it for essential production, finally forced the Boston Depot shoe experts to retrofit the services shoe with a rubber heel (9-6F Type I) and shortly thereafter a rubber tap (9-6F Type II) in late 1941.

In fact, the Quartermaster Department should have known as early as 1935 that the service shoe in its interwar form was unfit for hard service--because the CCC had told them so. As early as 1935, the CCC administration began pressuring the Army to provide enrollees with service shoes equipped with composition (i.e., rubber) rather than leather soles. The 1935 edition of the Civilian Conservation Corps' Safety Division Regulations flatly stated that "For most types of work as encountered by members of the Civilian Conservation Corps, a composition sole shoe is best suited. These shoes should have a thick inner sole between the foot and outer composition sole to protect the foot from unusual heat penetration." In 1940, the members of the National Farm Institute noted that enormous Quartermaster purchases of sole-grade leather to make service shoes for the expanding army were driving up the price of footwear for civilians. In response, the Farm Institute noted that "We looked into the question of whether this was the only material out of which satisfactory soles could be made, and found that the Civilian Conservation Corps had been buying shoes with composition soles and had found them highly satisfactory, We recommended that the Army place part of its orders for composition soles in order to keep the price of leather soles from being pushed up higher. " [emphasis added]

Fragmentary through they are, these citations make it clear that the CCC had learned as early as 1935 that rubber soles would be required to adapt the service shoe for real field wear. Yet the Quartermaster Corps would wait until 1941 before it faced up to the limitations of its beloved lightweight leather shoe.

For costumed reenactors, the early introduction of rubber taps on CCC service shoes is marvelous news, as it means Type II service shoe reproductions made for World War II reenactors are entirely accurate for post-1935 CCC impressions as well.

MOBILIZATION ERA EXPEDIENT: TRENCH SHOES, 1918 "PERSHING" AND 1918 "VICTORY"

Service shoes may have been the archetypal CCC shoe in practice, but in popular memory, the CCC is still more closely associated with "World War I hobnailed boots." If you believe the mythology, you'd think that every boy ever enrolled strode off into the woods in hobnailed trench boots exhumed from some dusty Quartermaster Depot warehouse. Indeed, one 1983 collection of CCC reminiscences is actually titled "Hobnail Boots and Khaki Suits."

Though most CCC boys really wore service shoes, there is a grain of truth to the hobnail hagiography. Thanks to a remarkable lawsuit, Georgia Wholesale v. United States, we know that two million World War I surplus trench boots were indeed issued to the CCC during 1933 and 1934.

After the Armistice, it seems, the Army had over 2,600,000 pairs of Pershing and Victory trench shoes in inventory in Quartermaster Depot warehouses all around the United States. These surplus boots were auctioned off in a series of sales taking place in and around 1922. A company called Georgia Wholesale won many of these bids. Under the terms of sale, the shoes would remain in War Department warehouses until called for in batches by Georgia Wholesale; the withdrawals would continue until the entire supply was expended.

In April 1933, when the Quartermaster faced the immediate challenge of equipping the first 250,000 CCC enrollees, the surplus World War I boots became as manna from heaven. Each enrollee in the first and second periods was issued one pair of surplus trench boots as standard kit, with a second replacement pair often issued during the term of enrollment. The boots were issued so swiftly that the Quartermaster Corps lost track of the exact number. As a harrassed Quartermaster Corps General later testified:

"Prior to issues made to the Civilian Conservation Corps, this office had a complete record of all trench shoes that had been declared surplus and obligated to the Georgia Wholesale Company under their contract. At that time there were approximately 1,000,000 pairs of trench shoes, most of which were located in considerable quantities at Fort Bliss, Boston, Brooklyn, Chicago, Columbus, New Cumberland, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Fort Sam Houston, Schenectady, and St. Louis ... . Since the issues to the Civilian Conservation Corps have been made, this office has completely lost control of the trench shoe situation and has no knowledge of the quantity located at any point except those in this depot, and this quantity is changing from day to day. A shipment of 18,000 pairs was recently made to San Francisco on instructions from your office, and today we are preparing a shipment of about 12,000 pairs for Fort George G. Meade to fill requisitions submitted by the Third Corps Area."

Georgia Wholesale promptly sued the government, arguing that though the boots had been physically located in military warehouses they were the property of the company, and the Army had defrauded the wholesaler by transferring the trench boots to the CCC. The courts agreed, forcing the War Department to account for every surplus trench boot issued to the CCC and pay a per-boot price to the wholesaler. In the end, the government paid the company for 900,000 pairs of trench boots it had transferred to the Corps.

Like the World War I wool field trousers issued in the same era, the Pershing and Victory trench boots were an emergency expedient, not an intentional standard. Even in 1933 when the issue of WWI surplus trench shoes to the CCC was in full swing, Director Fechner still recorded that "Among the shoe purchases are noted approximately 1,761,000 pair of service shoes." In the same vein, the 1933 table of allowance set up by the Quartermaster for the work camps for the Civilian Conservation Corps noted that "Service shoes may be issued in lieu of trench shoes when trench shoes are not available locally."

Once the supply of trench shoes was exhausted, service shoes became the CCC standard.

Advertisement for War Department auction of surplus WWI Trench Shoes in a trade magazine, Boot and Shoe Recorder, January 21, 1922. It specifies that the postwar auctions included all four specs of Pershing shoe and both specs of Victory shoe. This was one of many similar surplus auctions ca.1922 from which Georgia Wholesale built its inventory of trench shoes--the same shoes that were commandeered for the CCC in 1933 and 1934. Source: Boot and Shoe Recorder, January 21, 1922, digitized in Google Books.

Below are images of CCC men wearing what I believe to be trench shoes. All such identifications are tentative--the limited resolution in the available images rarely permits truly firm conclusions.

Enrollees at Mount Rainier National Park, 1933-1935. Detail of footwear of boy looking down, second from left. Duck-billed rather than rounded toebox and thick sole are consistent with a trench boot instead of a service shoe. Note faint suggestion of a horizontal line on the heel counter running back from the Blucher ear--this would be consistent with a 1918 Pershing boot. Mount Rainier National Park, 1933-1935. Source: National Park Service photograph by Natt N. Dodge: Negative Number 86-102.

Oregon CCC camp boys, undated. Note the telltale glint of hobnails in the soles of the boot of the boy sitting cross-legged on log at center. The sharp difference in color between the hobnailed toe area and the smooth, nonhobnailed sole in front of the heel suggests a toe tap, which would be consistent with Victory trench shoes. Source: Oregon State University, Gerald W. Williams Collection, identifier gwilliams:481.

Two images, leather laced caulk logging boots in the field with the CCC in Idaho in 1939. Left, fire crew on Spirit Lake Fire, 1939. Right, enrollee getting his hand bandaged after an injury fighting the same fire. Somewhat lower upper, fewer lace points, and lack of toe cap distinguish these civilian-style caulk boots from the military leather laced boot discussed below. Source: University of Idaho Civilian Conservation Corps in Idaho Collection.

The low quarter Oxford dress shoe is the alpha and omega of CCC footwear, appearing in 1933 at the start of the program, disappearing in the prime years, and returning for the finale 1939-42.

During the mobilization era many boys seem to have been issued trench boots for work and a pair of black civilian Oxford-style shoes for dress. Recall Conrad Wirth's reminiscence cited in the introduction above that early in the program "the youths were issued blue denim work suits, caps, and a modified Army dress uniform which consisted of sturdy black shoes, woolen olive drab trousers and coat, khaki shirts, and black necktie."

Given the emergency nature of these purchases and the lack of any contemporary Army specification for low quarter shoes for enlisted men, it seems likely that these mobilization era "sturdy black shoes" were any black Oxford-style shoes the QMC regional depots could get their hands on.

The original low quarter dress shoe disappeared from the CCC table of equipment along with its Trench Shoe partner by 1935. With CCC footwear standarized on the Army service shoe pattern, there was no need for a separate dress shoe--after all, the raison d'etre of the service shoe was to look good on parade as well as in the field.

The introduction of the spruce green winter uniform in 1939 brought a return of the black Oxford to the CCC. A black dress shoe was again specified as the companion of the spruce green dress uniform in the post-1939 regulations. Images of these shoes are common in late-era photographs, but few are of high enough resolution to show the detailed appearance of these shoes. Until a surviving example turns up we are left to speculate that they may have resembled a black low quarter version of the service shoe. Some images do show toe caps, which would be consistent with the Army style for enlisted footwear.

The well-known publicity photo for the debut of the new spruce uniform. Frank Papuga models the black oxford with the new uniform, right, in contrast to the russet service shoes on Robert Alesandri, left. The new shoes appear to have a toe cap. Source: Library of Congress.

Library and reading room at the Mormon Creek CCC Camp [F-30], Rapid River Ranger District, Hiawatha National Forest, Michigan, July 1939. Enrollee right front is wearing a black oxford with a very low quarter. Source: Forest History Society.

UNANSWERED FOOTWEAR QUESTIONS

We can state with confidence that the Army service shoe (or close derivatives) was the most common CCC footwear, albeit often with CCC-specific rubber taps. We can also be sure that in the mobilization era World War I-era trench boots and civilian black oxfords were also issued. Late in the program the black Oxford returned. FInally, USFS and State Forest Service camps often had some form of civilian caulk boot, or, rarely, perhaps the military laced leather boot.

Beyond these conclusions things get hazy quickly. Recall the testimony of Thomas R. Bowerman, Sr., quoted in the caulk boot section above. Bowerman enrolled in the Corps in May of 1940, and paid close attention to this footwear. He recalled the finish of his first CCC boots vividly:

"The clothes they gave us were outdated Army clothes. The pants looked like the fuzzy Army blankets and even the shoes had fuzz on them. We had one boy who knew how to put lighter fluid on the shoes and burn the fuzz off and then shine them to a high finish. He charged a quarter and he got rich."

Bowerman's description of shoes "that had fuzz on them" corresponds exactly to a roughout finish. But in 1940, there should have been no surplus Pershing or Victory trench boots remaining in inventory. I have never seen a roughout caulk boot. And the Army itself would not make a new roughout service shoe until well into World War 2. So what on earth was Bowerman issued in 1940? Could it be possible that some experimental roughout service shoes were made for the CCC?

We just don't know. But when it comes to footwear, at some point or another, somewhere in the CCC, nearly anything went.

LEGGINGS

In the U.S. Army footwear system between the wars, leggings or puttees were the essential complement to service shoes. In the eyes of the Quartermaster Corps, service shoes and leggings formed one integrated protective system; it was inconceivable that the former could be issued without the latter. It followed that some form of ankle and leg covering was issued to each Conservation Corps man in his initial clothing outfit from the beginning to the end of the program.

However, it is clear from period photographs that the CCC boys themselves regarded their leggings as an annoyance at best, useless at worst. Outside of formal group portraits in the initial conditioning camps, images of CCC men wearing leggings with denims for field work are vanishingly scarce, and photographs of leggings worn with the dress woolen uniforms are only slightly less uncommon. Most pairs clearly spent their entire lives in the bottom of footlockers, never worn except for the occasional effort to turn out in full dress for a portrait for the folks back home.

Given their extremely rare use in the field, I would personally discourage costumed interpreters from adding leggings to most CCC impressions. A pair would, however, make an interesting addition to a footlocker display.

BACKGROUNDER: LEGGINGS VS. PUTTEES

LEGGINGS: CANVAS, LIGHT SHADE, "PATTERN 1917" WW1 SURPLUS

LEGGINGS: CANVAS, DISMOUNTED, QM TENTATIVE SPECIFICATION DATED 15 MARCH 1934

LEGGINGS: CANVAS, DISMOUNTED, JQMD SPECIFICATION 6-288 DATED 8 AUGUST 1940