West Virginia RPCVs to interview RPCVs to preserve the legacy of the Peace Corps
Pursuant to the matter of bibliographies, I forgot to add that in fact such bibliographies associated with the great Library…
The West Virginia Returned Peace Corps Volunteers has received a grant from the WV Humanities Council to fund recording of interviews with former Peace Corps Volunteers and staff.
The interviews will be stored, cataloged and made available via the Kennedy Library (part of the National Archives and Records Administration). The West Virginia interviews will also become part of the collection at the state Department of Archives and History.
Former Volunteers and staff interested in being part of this project should send contact information, along with basic information about their service, in an email to westvirginiarpcv@gmail.com, with “Interviews” in the subject line. Since 1961, more than 700 West Virginians have served in the Peace Corps.
This project is being presented with financial assistance from the West Virginia Humanities Council, a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
This is great!
In addition to the West Virginia RPCV Association, there is an NPCA affiliate group which is also working with the JFK Library Oral History Project. Any RPCV is eligible to participate in the JFK RPCV Oral History project. Here is the link:https://www.peacecorpsoralhistory.org/cpages/home
The original Oral History Project was begun by Robert Klein (Ghana 1), The JFK Library became interested in the
archiving of Peace Corps materials through the efforts of John Coyne and the NPCA. Now the NPCA affiliate group is continuing the project.
I am a RPCV and am interested in participating in your project. My brother and I were the first brother/sister to serve in the Peace Corps. We were in Ethiopia I, 1962-1964. My name is Arwilda L. Bryant (Haynes) and my brother’s name is Albert R. Bryant. My sister and her husband, Uris and Shirley Bryant Roberson served in Tanzania. My son, William B. Haynes served in Ukraine and in Tanzania. If you need additional information, please let me know.
Arwilda,
Please contact the project at the link in my comment above. All RPCVs are eligble to participate. I would urge you to follow up. There is sign up information on the web page. At one time, I believe there was an emphasis on trying to interview RPCVs from the 60s. That was not because some RPCVs were considered more important than others. Rather the group of us who served in the 60s grows smaller all the time because we are aging.
Every single RPCV is important. Please contact the project on the link in my comment above. Your whole family should be thanked for their service. What a great example you set!
This would seem to duplicate all of the work that Bob Klein had done. Or is there something I don’t understand. One question, however, is whether the volunteers finishing up today, vs the earlier ones whom Bob had interviewed, see their service the same way. Something I have always wondered. Bob interviewed ME years ago, so my thinking, as of that era, is part of the archive. I also arranged RPCV accommodations for Bob when he was visiting this state. John Turnbull New Mexico
John Turnbull,
It is not a duplication of the work Bob Klein did. Quite the contrary – it is a continuation of the work which he did. Your interview should be archived at the JFK Library. After he died, Phyliis Noble (RPCV) took up the project, working with the JFK Library and using the same guidelines, initially, which Bob created. Phyllis Noble was Bob’s good friend and had worked with him. After Phyllis died, Pat Wand (RPCV) who had been working with Phyllis took over the project. Now there is a team working to expand the opportunities. The project is an affliate group with the NPCA. The link I showed is for the webpage of the RPCV Oral History Project. You will be happy to know that Bob’s picture is on their webpage!
I don’t understand exactly what you are asking, here: “One question, however, is whether the volunteers finishing up today, vs the earlier ones whom Bob had interviewed, see their service the same way.” Every Volunteer is entitled to present his or her experience as they wish. The integrity of Peace Corps history depends on that!
I’d like RPCVs to consider an alternative or a way to supplement their interviews for various oral history projects. I’m referring to the Museum of the Peace Corps Experience, which is collecting artifacts, stories, AND interviews from returned volunteers.
The best way to grasp the Museum’s mission is to visit the website (and read very condensed stories) at: museumofthepeacecorpsexperience.org/cpages/stories. Volunteers willing to write a one-page story and photo of a related object will find a submission form at the bottom of that page.
All stories are worth telling and archiving, as the West Virginia RPCVs are doing. Kudos for getting a grant! The Museum’s long-term goal is to become a repository in the nation’s capital that embraces our impact in cultures around the world. All are welcome to join this effort!
This is the first year for our grant in WV and we give top priority to RPCVs with ties to WV. Interviews must be done in person to meet the technical requirements for the archives.
Scott,
I hope I did not create the impression you all were the only ones taking up all of the RPCV Oral History Project. What I had intended was only to direct any interested RPCV, who could not access your program, to the NPCA website for more information. My assumption was your efforts were part of the overall JFK RPCV Oral History Project. I should have been more clear.
Twemty years ago when Robert Klein began the Oral History Project, he traveled the country, staying with RPCVs and interviewing as many as possible in each location. Once a person had been interviewed by Bob, they then could be interviewers, themselves and teach others how to be interviewers, also. In this way, Bob created a network of interviewers across the country. Sadly, he died in 2012.
As you explained, the interviews must be done in person. My understanding is the current team working as an NPCA affiliate group is trying to develop more interviewers so that RPCVs all over the country may access the program.
Congratulations on your grant. I apologize if I created any confusion. Best of luck of what should be a wonderful contribution.
Hello Joanne and others, My earlier question pertained not to the collecting and archiving of large quantities of data, so much as when we will see some insight from studying all this data.
As a scientist, and watching the probable social impacts of climate change, and probably a major regression of human civilization and rampant emigration all over the globe, we don’t have a lot of time to see just what we have learned.
The world that the Peace Corps of, say, 2035, will meet, be radically different than what we see today, and what the early PCVs had understood. What will those future PCVs be asked to do ??
SO, whilst archiving large amounts of data, is a great idea, maybe somebody can tell us what to learn from it –whilst we still have time to learn from it. John Turnbull Ghana-3 Geology and Nyasaland/Malawi-2 Geology Assignment, 1963, -64, -65.
I could not agree with you more, John. The problem is the data collection has not been consistent through the decades. Volunteers have been witness to incredible changes over the last amost 60 years. But the record is incomplete.
Joanne, Reading the summary of this new documentary (described at top), it implies that the PC Agency is striving to stay relevant in a changing world. I hope they’re successful, given what scientists like me see on the horizon. Rampant population growth and what to do about it, could become, finally, the “Fourth Goal, Implied” of the PC.
I’m in awe that in some African countries, since I was there in 1963+, their populations have quadrupled — and somehow still functioning crammed into the same land area and resource base as 60 years ago.
Never mind the Chinese taking possession of chunks of arable African lands, in payment for defaulted loans from Chinese banks, quietly settling Chinese workers, and starting what looks like a new colonialism. Lots to be pondering. John Turnbull
John,
Thank you for you observations about Chinese and Africa. I didn’t have any idea about the reasons for some of the problems in Africa. I think you and so many RPCVs remain focused on the country/contingent where you served so many years ago. It is precisely that kind of knowledge which abounds in the RPCV community. I wish there were more ways to exploit all that knowledge and experience.
I believe that Peace Corps women have been aware from the very beginning of the desire for women all over the world to control their fertility. Depending on the political environoment and the available resources, Peace Corps has been working to help
women meet their need for family planning.
Ironically, some of the programs in which Peace Corps has participated, such as the eradication of small pox, have contributed to more people living longer and healther lives and having children which also live.
Thanks, Joanne, Today, as contrasted with 50 years ago, all of us “do-gooders” live in a horrible paradox. Do what we can to eliminate individual suffering, and THEN, at the same time contribute to overpopulation which brings with it even worse and more widespread individual suffering — but of a more indirect and hard-to-address manner.
My memories always return to my days, in an earlier PC era, when I was cast as a “Beeg Mahn”, and someone who had BIGGER answers, and importantly, was approachable and sympatico.
And on Friday nights at the village bar, people, in that equitable. somewhat inebriated and spontaneous moment, when all authority was set aside,, felt confident asking me, and challenging me, as to what I believed, and WHY.
Women were never there, BUT they all knew that next week their opportunity would present itself. “Meestah Turnbull, you told the men, blah, blah, blah. blah. BUT they’re only MEN ! NOW, what about . . .”
And I think everyone understood that when a Beeg Mahn wagged his finger at them, and reverted to English and said “You mind !”, and they knew he was “on their side”. people listened.
What memories ! John Turnbull Ghana-3 Geology and Nyasaland/Malawi-2 Geology Assignment 1963-64-65
The world has changed. The day of the Pony Express, Buffalo Soldiers and air mail routes flown by biplanes has passed, as will the Peace Corps. If we wish that the memory lingers, memoirs and a repository for them are the key. The Library of Congress is already set up for this. It just takes some legislation and funding. The electronic media (like movies) is too ephemeral.
Lawrence, This is from the Library of Congress”
“The Library of Congress celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps in September 2011 with an annotated bibliography of selected books in the Library of Congress collection authored by returned Peace Corps volunteers and a few former staff members. This revised and updated bibliography includes books published between 1964 and 2015. The earliest cited books were authored by Sargent Shriver (1964), Earle and Rhoda Brooks (1965), and Arnold Zeitlin (1965).
About the Authors
The cited authors and editors were among the many dedicated individuals who served in more than 70 developing countries in every corner of the world: from familiar places such as Brazil, Ecuador, and Morocco, to lesser known ones such as Gabon, Benin, and Togo. One of the remotest and most obscure places where one author served is Birobidjan, capital of the Jewish Autonomous Region of Russia. Nine cited authors served in Afghanistan or Iran, in another era when those countries welcomed the Peace Corps.
About the Books
This bibliography includes both fiction and nonfiction books. Within the larger nonfiction category, most of the books are scholarly or journalistic works.
Although “the Peace Corps experience” is a core component of this annotated bibliography, the niche category of memoirs may account for only about a fifth of the cited books. Most of the books cited herein relate to the developing world in general.
Whatever the subject, these books are representative of the creativity, scholarship, and knowledge of the developing world of authors with Peace Corps service. As such, these books attest to the formative influence that Peace Corps service had on the authors.
Sources
The sources for the Peace Corps service information are the the Peace Corps Worldwide, “Bibliography of Books by Peace Corps Writers” of PeaceCorpswriters.org, and the National Peace Corps Association’s Directory of the Peace Corps Community (2006).
Note: This selected bibliography attempts to be representative of authors with Peace Corps service whose books are in the Library of Congress collections, and whose topics relate to “the Peace Corps experience” or the developing world in general. This bibliography does not reflect any official endorsement or policy position by the Library of Congress or the U.S. government in general.”
If you google Library of Congress and put peace corps in the search box, a wealth of documents, books and pictures will appear.
A selected bibliography is not a special collection. Since 90% of Peace Corps memoirs are self-published, they will soon disappear and a bibliography will be useless.
Historians say that of the totality of known information in any given age, only about 10% of it will pass down to posterity. And single tattered, hard-copies of some of these RPCV remembrances may be what future generations have to study.
We certainly have an example of this with insights into events in ancient Rome, for which sometimes only a single copy (think of Tacitus) has survived.
And, if scientists’ expectations of a massive shrinkage of human civilization is on the horizon, we’re reminded of a similar calamity, millenia ago, when the vast Library of Alexandria simply disappeared (except for occasional papyrus documents later found buried in clay jars in the Egyptian desert). John Turnbull
Pursuant to the matter of bibliographies, I forgot to add that in fact such bibliographies associated with the great Library of Alexandria, did survive, and historians marvel at the titles of long-lost knowledge, which we will never read. John Turnbull