Civilian Conservation Corps Company 2669 and the Construction of Devil’s Lake State Park, More than 350 Photographs from Madison, Wisconsin c. 1934 -1941

Marvin F. Hartman Civilian Conservation Corps Wisconsin

Photograph

Civilian Conservation Corps and Wisconsin Conservation Department photograph archive, circa 1930s, documenting the expansion of New Deal work relief into park construction, forestry, public recreation, and state-administered conservation at Devil’s Lake State Park. The photographs record the federal labor and state supervision that gave the park much of its modern infrastructure during the Great Depression. Photographs by Madison Photographer Marvin F. Hartman identify Camp Devil’s Lake, SP 12 (Wis.), and the 2669th Company CCC, establishing the company responsible for much of the labor shown across the albums. Hartman photographed the camp, its enrollees, and departmental projects, providing a record of the worst unemployment crisis in American history, and showing in detail the federal government’s response to the Great Depression.
Photo archive of two albums containing more than 350 mounted and loose silver gelatin photographs with approximately 30 associated negatives, principally Madison, Wisconsin, circa 1930s. Most photographs carry an "M. F. Hartman" embossed stamps, manuscript identifiers, numbered paper tabs, negative designations, or written ownership and reproduction controls. The images show CCC enrollees standing in inspection formations among barracks and service buildings; assembled outside camp structures; working in quarries and among fractured rock; operating trucks, lifting equipment, and road machinery; grading park roads; setting stone in steep bluff terrain; planting trees; and posing with axes, sacks of feed, and wooden wildlife feeding boxes marked “C.C.C.” Camp views identify the “Exchange recreation hall,” barracks, utility buildings, water towers, landscaped paths, and the entrance sign reading “Camp Devils Lake, SP 12 (Wis.), 2669th Company CCC.” A signed panoramic greeting over an elevated view of the camp reads “A merry Christmas, CCC 2669, a happy New Year, Devils Lake” and bears Hartman’s signature, directly joining the photographer, the company, and the site. Other photographs record the completed public landscape through beaches, skating areas, roads, shelters, picnic grounds, playgrounds, crowded gatherings, ceremonial fish releases, and visitors using the lake and park facilities. Additional images document Nelson Dewey State Park, North Parkway projects administered by the United States Department of the Interior and National Park Service, wildlife handling, family groups, and other Wisconsin Conservation Department subjects. A typed and manuscript notice states that the book is the second series, that “H” denotes a Hartman negative, that prints and negatives are not to be removed, and that copies could not be made, sold, or reproduced without the owner’s permission.

More than three million men served before the program ended in 1942, receiving food, housing, medical care, training, and wages, most of which were commonly sent home to support their families. Wisconsin used CCC labor to expand state park access, build roads and trails, manage forests and wildlife, reduce fire risk, and construct the rustic stone and timber facilities that defined public park development during the period. At Devil’s Lake, Camps 2615 and 2669 supplied labor for construction and maintenance projects across difficult quartzite terrain, and the archive shows both the camp organization that sustained the workforce and the finished recreational landscape opened to the public. Hartman’s photographs also document the administrative life of conservation photography: he numbered the images, retained negatives, marked authorized prints, restricted reproduction, and produced views capable of circulating through state offices, publications, and public information channels. Moderate wear to both album bindings and pages, scattered handling marks and surface wear, several prints loose or unmounted, penciled notations throughout, and defects to some negatives. Overall in good condition. A sustained photographic record of how CCC Company 2669, the Wisconsin Conservation Department, and Madison photographer M. F. Hartman converted federal relief labor into the roads, buildings, wildlife projects, and recreational infrastructure of Devil’s Lake State Park.

Item #23695

Price: $1,250.00