Non-military National Service
The Great Depression and World War II created the modern, American ethos for national service. First, the challenges of the Great Depression brought about large-scale, government-sponsored work programs to help rehabilitate the economy. The Federal Emergency Relief Administration, Civilian Conservation Corps, Public Works Administration, Works Progress Administration, and other agencies provided employment opportunities for millions of Americans while they performed a type of National Service. The results of these programs created most of America’s modern infrastructure.
Those Americans not involved in the fighting during World War II made direct contributions in other ways: rationing, price controls, purchasing war bonds, civil defense, and working in war industries. The War Production Board, War Manpower Commission, Office of Price Administration, Office of War Mobilization and other agencies were created to support the war effort.
Read more about this topic: National Service In The United States Of America
Famous quotes containing the words national and/or service:
“The return of the asymmetrical Saturday was one of those small events that were interior, local, almost civic and which, in tranquil lives and closed societies, create a sort of national bond and become the favorite theme of conversation, of jokes and of stories exaggerated with pleasure: it would have been a ready- made seed for a legendary cycle, had any of us leanings toward the epic.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“You had to face your ends when young
‘Twas wine or women, or some curse
But never made a poorer song
That you might have a heavier purse,
Nor gave loud service to a cause
That you might have a troop of friends.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)