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As part of President Franklin
D. Roosevelt's New Deal during the Great Depression, artists and writers
were hired to document life in the United States. The Civilian Conservation
Corps hired unemployed men to clear forests for agricultural use,
develop parks and wildlife refuges and dig mosquito control ditches.
In Delaware, workers lived in military-type camps near the towns of
Lewes, Leipsic and Magnolia. Baltimore-born artist Jack Lewis has
just graduated from Rutgers University when he was hired to sketch
and paint the activities at the Delaware CCC camps. Mr. Lewis remembers
Although most of the men hired by the CCC were from urban areas, some Delawareans worked on the crews, and the projects sponsored by the agency remained as a lasting legacy of federal programs under the New Deal. Artist Jack Lewis eventually settled in Delaware, where he taught art in the public schools and at Delaware Community College for almost 30 years. He continued to document Delaware's unique landscape throughout his career in books such as The Delaware Scene. |
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