It’s Peace Corps Week
Peace Corps Week commemorates the date President John F. Kennedy signed the executive order to establish the Peace Corps, March 1, 1961.
Learn more about the Peace Corps and the Volunteers who are making a different in host countries around the world here.
Pictured: President Kennedy hands the pen used to sign the Peace Corps Act to his brother-in-law, R. Sargent Shriver, who he had designated as the Corps founding Director.
Source: facebook.com
Letter from India
Lillian Carter, mother of President Jimmy Carter, wrote this letter to Mrs. Walter Spann while she was a Peace Corps volunteer in India. Mrs. Carter was 70 years old at the time.8/15/68.
Source: presidentialtimeline.org
Western Union Telegram from JFK to Hoover
In March, 1961, President John F. Kennedy asks Herbert Hoover to be the honorary chairman of National Advisory Committee to the Peace Corps. Hoover declines, writing that, at 86 years old he is not taking on anymore commitments, but is honored to be asked.
-from the Hoover Library
On this day 51 years ago, President John F. Kennedy announced the formation of the Peace Corps. Happy birthday to us!
(via pbsthisdayinhistory)
Source: peacecorps
life:
Did you know? — On this day in 1961 JFK established the Peace Corp.
During John F. Kennedy’s historic campaign, he proposed that the United States should create a “new” army; an army, or rather a group of gracious civilians who would volunteer to help underdeveloped nations. The Peace Corp was founded out of this very concept. It was issued as a trial program that was established as a permanent program just a few months later.
I think in many ways it is the most important campaign since 1933, mostly because of the problems which press upon the United States, and the opportunities which will be presented to us in the 1960s. The opportunity must be seized, through the judgment of the President, and the vigor of the executive, and the cooperation of the Congress. Through these I think we can make the greatest possible difference.
How many of you who are going to be doctors, are willing to spend your days in Ghana? Technicians or engineers, how many of you are willing to work in the Foreign Service and spend your lives traveling around the world? On your willingness to do that, not merely to serve one year or two years in the service, but on your willingness to contribute part of your life to this country, I think will depend the answer whether a free society can compete. I think it can! And I think Americans are willing to contribute. But the effort must be far greater than we have ever made in the past.
— John F. Kennedy
(see more — JFK’s Run for the White House: Unpublished Photos)
President John F. Kennedy establishes The Peace Corps by executive order on March 1, 1961.
Here, a 1961 brochure for the Peace Corps.
More: Birth of the Peace Corps
Source: presidentialtimeline.org
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
-Eleanor Roosevelt
She was the niece of Theodore, and the wife of Franklin D., but in her own right, Eleanor was a Roosevelt of singular leadership and vision.
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was born 127 years ago, on October 11, 1884. Her father was Elliott Roosevelt, President Theodore Roosevelt’s younger brother. On March 17, 1905, she married her fifth cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and between 1906 and 1916, they became the parents of six children.
With American entry in World War I, Eleanor became active in the American Red Cross and in volunteer work in Navy hospitals. In 1921, Franklin Roosevelt was stricken with polio causing Eleanor to become increasingly active in politics in part to help him maintain his interests but also to assert her own personality and goals.
Upon moving to the White House in 1933, Eleanor Roosevelt informed the nation that they should not expect their new first lady to be a symbol of elegance, but rather “plain, ordinary Mrs. Roosevelt.” Despite this disclaimer, she showed herself to be an extraordinary First Lady. In 1933, Eleanor became the first, First Lady to hold her own press conference. In an attempt to afford equal time to women—who were traditionally barred from presidential press conferences—she allowed only female reporters to attend.
Throughout FDR’s presidency, Eleanor traveled extensively around the nation, visiting relief projects, surveying working and living conditions - she was called “the President’s eyes, ears and legs.” She became an advocate of the rights and needs of the poor, of minorities, and of the disadvantaged.
After President Roosevelt’s death on April 12, 1945, Eleanor continued in her public life. President Truman appointed her to the United Nations General Assembly. She served as chair of the Human Rights Commission and worked tirelessly to draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which was adopted by the General Assembly on December 10, 1948.
In her later years, President John F. Kennedy appointed Eleanor Roosevelt to the National Advisory Committee of the Peace Corps, and as the first chairperson of the President’s Commission on the Status of Women. She died in 1962 in New York City and is buried next to FDR in Hyde Park, NY.
Happy birthday Eleanor Roosevelt!
-More Eleanor from the FDR Library
President John F. Kennedy signs the Peace Corps Act on September 22, 1961. Here, JFK hands a pen to Peace Corps Director R. Sargent Shriver after signing the Bill in the Oval Office. White House, Washington D.C.
Happy birthday, Peace Corps. The toughest job you’ll ever love turns 50 this year; today marks the day that President Kennedy signed the Peace Corps Bill into law.
Here’s to all the volunteers who have promoted peace and friendship around the world. This photo from the 1960s features a Peace Corps Volunteer in Instanbul.
If you aren’t already following the Peace Corps on Tumblr, you can see many more pictures of volunteers at work here.
The sign that hung at the original Peace Corps office in Ghana, the first country to host Peace Corps Volunteers.
This sign was among the artifacts we donated to the National Museum of American History today. Read more about it: http://go.usa.gov/8gi
