The Peace Corps

Term Paper # 2018

History > European - 20th Century
History > U.S. Presidency
International Relations > U.S.

The Peace Corps

An overview of how the Peace Corps came to being, and the group's role today.

3,475 words () | 9 sources | 1996 United States

Paper Summary:

This paper details the origins of the Peace Corps and its development. It looks at the key political figures who urged the association to be set up. It talks about the type of work the association does, the requirements volunteers have to meet, training methods and goals and the way the type of volunteers involved in the Peace Corps has changed over time.

From the Paper:

"It was Wednesday, November 2, 1960. With election day less than a week away, more than one thousand five hundred enthusiastic democrats assembled at a $100.00 a plate dinner at San Francisco's Sheraton Palace Hotel. Speaking to his uproarious supporters, who punctuated his every sentence with screams and cheers, candidate Kennedy called for the establishment of a pool of "talented young men and women willing to serve their country for three years as an alternative or as a supplement to peacetime selective service, well qualified through rigorous standards to be ambassadors of peace." That night in the raging melee of the Cow Palace in San Francisco, the American Peace Corps was born (Sullivan 13-15)."