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Religion, Class, and the Development of Youth Volunteer Service in the United States, 1934–1973

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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. The dissertation further demonstrates the religious roots of this phenomenon, as seen through Protestant and Catholic programs in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. Further, it shows that this paradigm of volunteer has always been twofold in its aim; it has focused both on the growth and education of the volunteer as they served others. It also shows that impulse has always been a limited agent for large–scale social change. Service programs were by their nature short–term projects meant to expose and educate volunteers to more entrenched social problems. Finally, while adult organizers often made service opportunities a possibility, it was the desire of many young women and men to “do more” with their time and abilities outside of traditional educational or professional options was the engine that truly drove and grew this movement. i TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents ………………………………………………………………………….i Abbreviations Key...………………………………………………………………...……iii Acknowledgements……...………………………………………………………………..iv Introduction..………………………………………………………………………………1 1.0 “Creative Pioneers” and Quaker Work Camps ……………………………………...13 1.1 European Roots………………………………………………………………15 1.2 AFSC Camps Begin………………………………………………………….21 1.3 Shaping the Volunteer………………………………………………………..26 1.4 The Model Spreads…………………………………………………………..38 1.5 Serving Whom? ……………………………………………………………..46 2.0 Social Action in an Age of Anxiety …………………………………………………53 2.1 Responding to An Anxious Time……………………………………………56 2.2 The Influence of Civilian Public Service…………………………………….60 2.3 International Work Camps…………………………………………………...67 2.4 From Work Camp Movement to Volunteer Movement……………………..72 2.5 Vocation and Service…………………………………………………….…..79 2.6 A Movement Comes Together…………………………………………….…82 2.7 From Work Camps to Service Projects: Changes and Continuities…………89 3.0 Catholic Lay Apostles …………………………………………………….................95 3.1 The Lay Apostolate Awakens………………………………………………..98 3.2 A Challenge for Church Missions…………………………………………..101 3.3 “I am not going to be able to do it without some help”.……………………105 3.4 The Regis Lay Apostolate Experience……………………………………...108 3.5 The Model Spread…………………………………………………………..117 3.6 A New Movement Grows…………………………………………………..122 3.7 A Lay Missionaries Boom………………………………………………….128 4.0 To Serve God and Country…………………………………………………………136 4.1 Political Roots………………………………………………………………140 4.2 Waging Peace: Similarities and Differences………………………………..145 4.3 Religious Roots……………………………………………………………..150 4.4 Shared Credit……………………………………………………………….157 4.5 Through Peace Corps–tinted Lens……………………….…………………159 4.6 Mixed Responses…………………………………………………………...162 4.7 God and Country……………………………………………………………166 5.0 A Nationwide Movement.…………………………………………………..………173 5.1 Peace Corps Progeny and the War on Poverty……………………………..176 5.2 The Poverty Warriors of VISTA……………………………………………181 5.3 Towards National Service…………………………………………….…….188 5.4 (Off) Campus Growth………………………………………………………197 ii 5.5 Accrediting Service…………………………………………………………203 5.6 Religious Programs: Tributaries to a River of Service..……………………207 5.7 A Student Volunteer Movement……………………………………………210 Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………….….212 Appendix A……………………………………………………………………..………219 Bibliography …………………………………………………………………………...237 iii ABBREVIATIONS KEY AFSC American Friends Service Committee BSC Brethren Service Committee BVS Brethren Volunteer Service CCC Civilian Conservation Corps CPS Civilian Public Service CYSP Commission on Youth Service Projects MCC Mennonite Central Committee MVS Mennonite Voluntary Service SCI Service Civil International NTC National Teacher Corps VISA Voluntary International Service Assignments VISTA Volunteers in Service to America NSVP National Student Volunteer Program iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many parties made this project possible. In addition to the helpful archivists who aided my research, the staff of the O’Neill Library was immeasurably helpful in terms of helping me find obscure sources, and for being patient when I inevitably kept them far past their due date. My advisor, Jim O’Toole, has been a font of wisdom throughout this process. His generosity of spirit is unparalleled. Special thanks, as well to my second reader, Lynn Johnson, who has been a great teacher and friend. My family has been nothing but supportive. I want to give my deep thanks to my mother, brothers, and sister in law for their unconditional love and support. My beautiful wife Jennifer has been my rock throughout this process. Thank you for your grace and love. Our son Thomas arrived part way through this process, and has since brought me the greatest joy and grounding I could have asked for. Above all, I dedicate this to the two of you. 1 INTRODUCTION A May 2016 news story for Marketplace, a public radio news outlet, highlighted one large bank’s newest recruitment strategy. The institution had offered a select group of incoming hires, all recent college graduates, an unusual signing perk; they were given the opportunity to delay their start date so they could pursue a service–oriented “gap year.” To illustrate the new initiative, the story focused on one young man who had spent his year as a volunteer English teacher in Peru. The young man explained that the decision had been shaped by an undergraduate service trip to Ecuador where he had done similar work. Reflecting on his unique delay into corporate life, he said of his decision, “I knew this essentially would give me the best of both worlds. I think having both those experiences could help me develop as a person and as a professional and help me get some really good perspective on what I think I should do to impact the world.”1 Tellingly, the story did not fixate on the details of the young man’s desire to volunteer teach in Peru, his previous service trip to Ecuador, or his general interest in integrating his personal development with some form of constructive service. Instead, the story focused on the bank’s recruiting innovation. The young man’s previous experiences of volunteer service were not treated as highly unusual; rather, they were a given without the need for further detailed explanation. 1 Mark Garrison, “Banks look at new ways to recruit recent graduates.” Marketplace. May 16, 2016. http://www.marketplace.org/2016/05/13/business/young-bankers. 2 Though just one young man in one article, this small example sheds light on a larger phenomenon. For many young Americans—particularly those in the middle and upper class with the privilege to do so—from high school through college and the years immediately following, volunteer service is a normative presence in their lives. They can go on service trips overseas like the young man who went to Ecuador. Within the United States they can take similar service expeditions to impoverished urban neighborhoods, Native American reservations, or rural Appalachia to help improve homes or tutor small children. They can join a volunteer service club to help in their local community and can even earn college credits for such activities through “service–learning” courses that integrate volunteering into the curriculum. After college, they can sign up for postgraduate service programs that last up to a year or longer. The most famous of these latter opportunities is the iconic Peace Corps. But there are also smaller, and in many instances older, religiously–affiliated programs (many with Peace Corps–sounding names) like the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, Lutheran Volunteer Corps and Episcopal Service Corps. Behind the scenes, a volunteer service infrastructure facilitate theses opportunities, including volunteer coordinators, school and even federal funding, and catalogs of the many choices available for one
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