Beginning late in 1929, the Great Depression brought a desperate economic crisis to the United States as the stock market crashed and unemployment reached record highs. After his election in 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved quickly to begin relief, and thirty-seven days after his inauguration the first enrollee signed into the Civilian Conservation Corps. Many young men arrived at the camps hungry and poorly clothed, received uniforms and three meals a day, and most gained about forty pounds while in the CCC. The men earned $30 a month, most of which was sent home to their families. The U.S. Army ran the camps, while foresters directed work that included fighting forest fires, planting trees, building roads and buildings, and creating many state parks. Through this work, the CCC rebuilt land and people, helped build Pennsylvania's parks, reforested its hills, and transformed both Pennsylvania and the United States.