Book explores how New Deal program helped UP men

Article here. Excerpt:

'ISHPEMING, Mich. - The country is suffering through economic crises and high unemployment rates that some have dubbed the "Great Recession."

While many are facing hardships, today's numbers don't compare with the Great Depression of the 1930s.

"By 1933, it's hard to believe but 45 percent of the people in the Upper Peninsula were on welfare," said local author Larry Chabot, who gave a presentation on his newest book "Saving Our Sons: How the Civilian Conservation Corps Rescued a Generation of Upper Michigan Men" recently at the Ishpeming Carnegie Public Library. "In this poverty atmosphere, the character of the people began to change."

As the nation began to see its young men living as hobos, riding the rail lines to wherever they could find food, and watched small-town banks closing, it became clear something had to be done.

"The picture became bleaker and bleaker and bleaker," Chabot said. "There were no social nets at that time."'