Religion, Class, and the Development of Youth Volunteer Service in the United States, 1934–1973
"TheVolunteer Who Seeks to Help Others Also Helps Himself": Religion, Class, and the Development of Youth Volunteer Service in the United States, 1934–1973 Author: Christopher Staysniak Persistent link: http://hdl.handle.net/2345/bc-ir:107339 This work is posted on eScholarship@BC, Boston College University Libraries. Boston College Electronic Thesis or Dissertation, 2017 Copyright is held by the author, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted. “The VOLUNTEER WHO SEEKS TO HELP OTHERS ALSO HELPS HIMSELF”: RELIGION, CLASS, AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF YOUTH VOLUNTEER SERVICE IN THE UNITED STATES, 1934–1973 Christopher Staysniak A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Boston College Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences Graduate School March 2017 © Copyright 2017 Christopher Staysniak “THE VOLUNTEER WHO SEEKS TO HELP OTHERS ALSO HELPS HIMSELF”: RELIGION, CLASS, AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF YOUTH VOLUNTEER SERVICE IN THE UNITED STATES, 1934–1973 Christopher Staysniak Advisor: James M. O’Toole, Ph.D This dissertation examines the development of youth volunteer service in the United States through a constellation of religious, private, and government programs. It explores how this larger impulse, which includes “service trips,” service–learning courses, and postgraduate programs like the Peace Corps, became a normative and ubiquitous opportunity for middle class, and consequently largely white, Americans. This study weaves together multiple programs, and a rich array of ideas and events such as social gospel concerns, pacifism, William James’ arguments for a “moral alternative to war,” gender and class anxieties, Great Depression and Cold War–specific exigencies, the Catholic Lay Apostolate, 1960s student activism, and the War on Poverty.
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