She-She-She Camps
The camps were organized by Eleanor Roosevelt as a female counterpart to the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) programs designed for unemployed men.
[5] Although administered by US Army officers, the camps were designed not to be militaristic since the Administration did not want any resemblance to the Hitler Youth of Germany.
These tree armies kept the young male population occupied and engaged with conservation, fighting wildland fires, building dams and creating man-made lakes.
Eleanor Roosevelt fought resistance from the administration, many of whom objected to sending America's unemployed women on what could be described as a government-sponsored vacation in the middle of a depression.
ER was troubled by the plight of so many women, many of whom did not show up in the bread-lines but were relegated to living in subway tunnels and "tramping", foraging for subsistence outside urban areas.
The feminist writer Meridel Le Sueur wrote that once out of work, women "will go for weeks verging on starvation, crawling in some hole, going through the streets ashamed, sitting in libraries, parks, going for days without speaking to a living soul like some exiled beast".
He spent time at the recreation center, mess hall, barracks and camp library, praising the more than 200 enrollees for their hard work.
Before leaving, he visited the signature project, a dam across the outlet of the Pine Meadow Valley that created the first of many swimming lakes for tourists, a direct expression of FDR's regard for conservation and forestry.
This put the State relief administration representative, Walter W. Petit, on the hot seat to explain why only 30 of the 700 women who had applied had been selected.
"[15] Pauli Murray, who would later become a lawyer, writer, black civil rights activist, and episcopal priest, arrived at Camp TERA on the advice of her doctor at the end of 1933.
Living on the edge of poverty and diagnosed with pleurisy, she found her time there cut short after she clashed with the camp's director, Miss Mills.
It was not surprising that there were leftists in the camps, given that they were not far removed from the "Hoovervilles", and the troubadour-style of fellow travelers like singer Woody Guthrie fueled these sing-alongs.
In July 1936, the American Legion of Rockland County accused Camp TERA officials of using Federal funding for communist purposes.
As to complaints of the Internationale and radical satires being sung, and that controversial material was being read, some, Miller admitted were "of communist and socialist persuasion".
Spokeswoman for the organization Sarah Rosenberg, a vocal critic of the benefit of the She-She-She camps said, "More than one girl says there is nothing left except suicide or tramping on the roads".
Those with visual disabilities (there were camps for the blind) would make finished bedding or use natural materials to create woven products.
Maintenance of the barracks, housekeeping and kitchen duties along with instruction in economics and cooking were integral to the residential program, which lasted three to four months and was not subject to re-enrollment.
The Native American women were paid an additional allotment to find rental housing and traveled with the men who went off the reservation to work.
Games, athletic contests, hikes, music, and drama groups were included in the recreational plans and handicraft activities were encouraged.
Most of the women approved had led hard lives in the midst of the Depression and found the duties a relief from the meager sustenance in the cities, many embracing the outdoors with a vigor to match that of the young men working in the CCC camps.
[22] The NYA (National Youth Administration) then in charge of the program, criticized the objectives and necessity of the camps and decided it was too expensive.
Her vision was a two-year program for young men and women to be devoted to domestic projects such as conservation, health care, education and settlement houses.
