Research Guides: The Heart and the Fist: Civilian Service

Preface to "What Is the Social Impact of National Service?" (2011). In L. Gerdes (Ed.), Opposing Viewpoints. National Service. Detroit: Greenhaven Press

Studies show that national service cultivates an ethic of service. This social impact of service is one reason advocates claim that support of national service programs should continue. In Still Serving: Measuring the Eight-Year Impact of AmeriCorps on Alumni,1 the authors found that those who serve continue to do so long after their initial service commitment is completed. Read more

Peace Corps

What You Can Do for Your Country: An Oral History of the Peace Corps. (2004). In C. Rose (Ed.), American Decades Primary Sources (Vol. 7, pp. 379-384). Detroit: Gale
Roger Landrum, Lynda Edwards, Robert Marshall, and George McDaniel enteredthe Peace Corps with similar expectations and left with different perspectives on their experience. Read more

Coleman, D. G. (2003). Peace Corps. In S. I. Kutler (Ed.), Dictionary of American History (3rd ed., Vol. 6, pp. 265-266). New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
The Peace Corps' inception was both a product of the Cold War struggle and a reaction to the growing spirit of humanitarian activism evident throughout the Western world by the beginning of the 1960s, a spirit that had manifested itself in volunteer humanitarian programs already implemented in Canada, Australia, Britain, France, and Japan. Read more

Lewis, M. C. (2012). Peace Corps. In D. Jacques & P. Kepos (Eds.), International Directory of Company Histories (Vol. 132, pp. 343-346). Detroit: St. James Press.
With remarkably efficient speed, the Peace Corps went from an idea expressed in a campaign speech in 1960 to becoming a federal agency a few months after President John F. Kennedy's inauguration. Few entities with such a broad mission of cross-cultural friendship, understanding, and service have negotiated the vertical and horizontal layers of the federal government and emerged with fully functioning operations in less than one year.Read more