Peace Corps Polyglot

Peace Corps Collection at the Kennedy Archives: Things You Need to Know

Peace Corps Volunteers often return home with a range of documents and mementos that chronicle their individual abroad experiences. A collection at the Kennedy Library in Boston compiles these materials in an effort to record the broader history of the Peace Corps through the words and stories of individual volunteers. The collection is central to the Third Goal of the Peace Corps - to "bring the world back home," as it allows the documents of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers to be accessed by the public and used to educate Americans about the rest of the world in a positive light.

The collection came to fruition through the efforts of John Coyne (Ethiopia 62-64) and a panel of RPCVs looking to find a home for the vast array of Peace Corps writings. Coyne, an author himself, is also the editor of www.peacecorpswriters.org, and a leading figure in the effort to bring together the stories of Peace Corps Volunteers. The collection fittingly landed at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. Current curator of the Peace Corps Collection, Jamie Quaglino, noted "the mission of the [library] is to collect material that documents the life and times of President John F. Kennedy. The Peace Corps Collection documents the efforts of a program that began during Kennedy's administration, yet still continues today."

The current Peace Corps Collection has two major components - the Personal Papers and Oral Histories of RPCVs. The Personal Papers collection, established nearly 25 years ago, includes letters home from Volunteers, memos and training guides, newspaper articles about volunteer efforts, postcards, photographs, scrapbooks, and PCV memoirs. The more recent Oral Histories collection consists primarily of audiotapes which have been compiled by trained interviewers and can be listened to at the library. Both components work to weave together a broader history of the Peace Corps through the words of those who served.

The collection is dependent on the donation of material by Returned Peace Corps Volunteers. Click here to read an interview with Jamie Quaglino and learn how you can donate documents and help construct a public Peace Corps history.

The RPCV Archive Project: Preserving the History of Peace Corps

The RPCV Archival Project is an informal network of RPCVs who work directly with the John F Kennedy Library to preserve the Peace Corps’ legacy through oral history interviews and the collection of archival materials from those who served as volunteers in the field. In the five years of its existence, more than
40 RPCV interviewers have completed approximately 300 interviews. The Project’s basic resource is and will continue to be the unpaid voluntary efforts of those RPCVs who’ve participated, operating mainly through NPCA Affiliate groups.

Now, as we approach the 50th Anniversary of Peace Corps, the Project plans a renewed effort (before it’s too late) to seek out those who were the pioneers of the Peace Corps, volunteers from the 1960s. We again appeal to those RPCVs willing to serve as interviewers. The Project Guide is under revision and, along with the required forms, will be available via e-mail PDF.

A modest goal for this renewed archival effort is to add 3000 1960s interviews to the RPCV Collection before the year 2011; that would be about 10% of those who served during that period.

Interested in helping preserve the history of Peace Corps?  Contact Bob Klein, Project Organizer at bobklein29@gmail.com.