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Medievalism in AmericanCulture: The Cloisters

by Sabine Tischer

he branch of the Metropolitan Museum ofArt known as The Cloisters, located inFort Tryon Park in New York City, was

one of the major philanthropic projects of John D.Rockefeller, Jr. (JDR Jr.) and it bears the stamp of his active personal interest. In the history ofAmerican cultural patronage, this project standsout in three ways. First, JDR Jr. donated not only an art collection to the museum but also anendowment and the building in which the collec-tion would be housed, thus creating one of thefirst branch museums in the United States operat-ing with its own funds. Second, the collection isthe only public collection in this country devotedexclusively to Western European medieval artand architecture. Finally, the choice of an archi-tectural style based on medieval prototypes andthus sympathetic to the collection represented amarked departure from contemporary museumdesigns.

All these aspects have been acknowledged instandard accounts of The Cloisters. Little attempthas been made, however, to illuminate what moti-vated JDR Jr. to make this remarkable donation.JDR Jr.’s records in the Rockefeller Familyarchives clarify the correlation between the gene-sis of The Cloisters, his philanthropic vision, andhis aesthetic interests. My study examines theideas that both motivated the stupendous growthand shaped the installation of Western medievalart and architecture in American public collec-tions in the first half of this century. In particu-lar, this study is concerned with what these ideasreveal about the perceptions of medieval art andarchitecture in American culture. JDR Jr.’srecords suggest that his ideas for The Cloisterswere rooted in the antimodern thought that took

hold among the educated and affluent at the end of the 19th century. Within antimodernism,the artifacts of medieval culture were understoodas witnesses to a bygone civilization rich in thosequalities that modern, stable, and progressive civilization lacked, but which it ought to possessif it was not to be doomed.

The idea of creating a park in northernManhattan that overlooked the Hudson River andcontained a museum devoted to medieval artdates back to 1916. In that year, JDR Jr. bought ahundred Gothic pieces from the sculptor and collector George Grey Barnard, who hadamassed a collection of medieval art and architec-tural elements from churches and monasteries insouthern France and northern Spain. Unable tosell them, Barnard in 1914 opened the BarnardCloisters, a museum located at 190th Street andFort Washington Avenue in Manhattan. JDR Jr.acquired the Gothic pieces from Barnard with theidea of establishing a museum of his own, but hisplans were interrupted by World War I. In 1925JDR Jr. offered to fund the purchase of the entireBarnard Cloisters by the Metropolitan Museum,

Table of Contents

Emergence of the RF’s Communications Program in the 1930s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3

The Anti-Tuberculosis Campaign in France, 1917-1922 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

RAC Research Grant Program . . . . . . . .8The Republican Party in the South in the 1968 Presidential Election . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11

The RF and Public Health in Chile . . . .13

The RF and the Institute of Pacific Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16

About the Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . .19

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Research Reports

while retaining the right to later change the location of the collection and to construct for it a new museum building at his own expense.Despite the Great Depression, the project gradu-ally took shape. In 1930 JDR Jr. gave the FortTryon property to the city, reserving four-and-a-half acres as a site for the museum, and the following year architect Charles Collens ofBoston submitted plans, which in general wereapproved by both JDR Jr. and Metropolitan officials. In 1935 Fort Tryon Park was opened to the public, and in 1938 The Cloisters opened,with parts of both the Barnard collection and JDR Jr.’s Gothic pieces forming the core of thenew museum’ s collection.

In offering his collection to JDR Jr., Barnardstressed the significance it would bear forAmerican sculptors unfamiliar with Europeantechniques of stone cutting. The MetropolitanMuseum welcomed the donation for its educa-tional value for a public with little awareness of the history of the art and architecture ofmedieval Europe. However, JDR Jr. bore a different goal in mind. In his speech at the opening of The Cloisters, he commented on thetheme of leisure and the value of beauty: “Withthe changes that time has brought, the whole-some and profitable use of leisure . . . is one ofthe great problems of the day. In its solution the cultural and uplifting value of beauty, whetherapprehended with eye or ear, is playing anincreasingly important part.” He expressed hishope that “The Cloisters in their new environ-ment, surrounded by nature at her best, willbecome another stimulating center for the prof-itable use of leisure.” He was clear about thespiritual profit that he intended modern visitorsto find in the museum’s environment he helpedcreate: “If what has been created here helps tointerpret beauty as one of the great spiritual andinspirational forces of life, having the power totransform drab duty into radiant living; if thosewho come under the influence of this place goout to face life with new courage and restoredfaith because of the peace, the calm, the loveli-ness they have found here; if the many who thirstfor beauty are refreshed and gladdened as they

drink deeply from this well of beauty, those whohave built here will not have built in vain.”

The correspondence between JDR Jr. and art dealers, as well as records of the ways he furnished his homes, make it clear that artisticbeauty was for him a category defined in scope.Fitting in general the pattern of antimodern aesthetic interests, JDR Jr.’s taste reveals, on onehand, a deep appreciation for Western medievaland antique oriental decorative arts, character-ized by balanced design and superb craftsman-ship; and, on the other hand, little interest inpainting and no interest at all in modern art. Theantimodern pattern of taste in general implied thenotion that the artifacts of medieval and orientalcultures — whether sacred or profane — embod-ied an intense spiritual experience. That JDR Jr.valued medieval art and architecture and itsrevival because of the spiritual impulse that theyrepresented is revealed by the records of his sup-port of both neo-Gothic church structures andthe restoration of the cathedrals in Rheims andChartres.

Antimodern sentiments not only motivated TheCloisters but also shaped the installation of its

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Rockefeller Archive Center

The Unicorn Tapestry at The Cloisters.

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The Emergence of theHumanities Division’s Programin Communications, 1930-1936

by William J. Buxton

Beginning in the mid-1930s the HumanitiesDivision (HD) of the RockefellerFoundation (RF) embarked on an ambi-

tious and far-reaching program in support of communications. In order to make sense of thenature and meaning of this development, I foundit necessary to closely analyze the shift in orienta-tion of the HD in the early 1930s under the newleadership of David Stevens and John Marshall.This new direction of the HD, I discovered, couldonly be understood in relation to the broader“sailing orders” that had set the course for thereconfigured “fleet” of RF divisions.

During the late 1930s, Rockefeller philanthropyconsolidated its major concerns into five divisions—medical sciences, international health, natural sciences, social sciences, and humani-ties—of the expanded RF. The new divisionalstructure suggested what long-time Rockefellerfamily secretary Frederick T. Gates would havecalled “scatteration.” But the intent of thechange was to bring “structural unity” to the various areas of Rockefeller philanthropic inter-est. As newly elected RF president Max Masondescribed the reorientation to the Board ofDirectors in 1930, “it was not to be five programs,each represented by a division of the Foundation;it was essentially one program, directed to thegeneral problem of human behavior, with the aimof control through understanding.” This realign-ment was followed by a period of deliberation,during which each division’s goals and prioritieswere reformulated.

The small and modestly funded HumanitiesDivision was particularly affected by this reor-ganization. As part of a thoroughgoing review, a “committee of three” (Raymond B. Fosdick,James R. Angell, and Walter W. Stewart) on

collection. It is clear that JDR Jr. wanted neither a place of worship nor one too suggestive of achurch. He vetoed partially the exterior plandeveloped by the Metropolitan’s curator, JosephBreck, who thought that the origin of the collec-tion demanded a structure similar to a southernFrench medieval monastery, which would bedominated by a church. In its final form, theexterior combines the castle-like structure pre-ferred by JDR Jr. with monastic but not churchforms. It is interesting that at the same time thathe argued against a church-like exterior, JDR Jr’svisions for the interior reveal his desire that thebuilding provide an intimate and emotionallystimulating shell for the collection similar to theearlier candle-lit, church-like setting of Barnard’sCloisters.

The interior design developed by the curatorsfollowed their educational considerations andresulted in a spacious and well-lit display of theobjects, but in the Tapestry Hall JDR Jr. request-ed an alteration that resulted in the division of the hall into two rooms with subdued light.Rockefeller had protected his vision of the muse-um at the outset by giving it only the propertysufficient for its construction, thus eliminatingthe possibility of expansion. He also vetoed theincorporation of educational facilities into thedesign; these, he thought, could be offered at themain museum. These restrictions continue toarouse debate, yet, from the perspective of thedonor, they can be understood as restrictions thatpreserve The Cloisters as a citadel “for spiritualand inspirational forces” by means of intense aesthetic experiences.

The idea of creating a place in the city for with-drawal and rest to promote spiritual and creativeaspects of life is recurrent in JDR Jr.’s thoughtand philanthropy. This idea is an outgrowth ofliberal Protestantism’s reaction against the secu-larizing tendencies of a culture of consumption.Embracing the anitmodernists’ perception ofmedieval culture, JDR Jr. appreciated medievalartifacts for representing a more intense spiritualexperience that put religion at the center of dailylife, not on its periphery.

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“appraisal and plan” was appointed by thetrustees to examine the purpose and future direc-tion of the various Rockefeller boards. In itsmassive report submitted in 1934, the committeeimplicitly criticized the “cloistered kind ofresearch” that the HD had previously supported.It recommended instead that rather than focusingon a small number of scholars “as interpreters of the past,” the officers of the HD were to turntheir attention to “widening the area of publicappreciation” and “reaching minds” more effec-tively through the new media of mass communi-cations. Responding to these suggestions, asechoed by the sentiments expressed in memoran-da and position papers, Marshall and Stevensbegan to examine how the HD could cut back itssupport of “antiquarianism” and “the traditions ofthe polite learning and exact scholarship” in favorof “those men and methods able to influence con-temporary taste of large masses of population.”

The move towards communications can beseen as part of a challenge to the “monopoly ofknowledge” held by the traditional humanisticdisciplines. The new humanities program, withits emphasis upon how culture could be cultivat-ed through general education, implied a closerworking relationship between Rockefeller philan-thropy, media producers in the private and publicsectors, educational and consumer groups, aswell as government officials. Correspondingly,relations with the sites of humanistic scholarship,namely the traditional and classical departmentsof elite universities, were to be attenuated.Implicit within this shift was the view that theorganization of production within these universi-ties was narrow and elitist, with little bearing onbroader patterns of culture and understanding.Accordingly, the HD set its sights on mobilizingthought and action in a variety of sites, largelyoutside of the university system, with a view toincreasing public appreciation of culture. By itsvery nature, this ambitious agenda involvedgreater attention given to communications.

The interest of the HD in communicationsembodied the overall concern with social controlthat underpinned the “structural unity” of the RFdivisional realignment. The medical sciences

division, as its director Alan Gregg wrote in his1932 annual report, was to give special attentionto both psychiatry and psychobiology. The fieldof neurology was singled out for particularemphasis, as it was held that through understand-ing and control of the nervous system, “physicalpain and mental stress” could be relieved.Similarly, the division of natural sciences, in thehope of Max Mason, was to focus on “man andhis problems of the mind.” In the same way thatthe natural science and medical science divisionswere to address issues of control in relation tothe mind, the nervous system, and the micro-biological processes of the human body, theHumanities Division was to turn its attention tohow minds were reached —and controlled—externally, through the intricate web of communi-cations.

In this sense, the HD’s concern with the cul-tural and communicative aspects of control was to complement the social or “human relations”aspects of control that had become the mandateof the social sciences division under the directionof E.E. Day. To a considerable extent, theHumanities Division worked in tandem with theGeneral Education Board (GEB), anotherRockefeller philanthropy with whom it sharedareas of concern. This coordination of tasks wassimplified by the fact that John Marshall, in addi-tion to holding the position of “assistant directorfor the humanities,” in the RF, was also “assistantdirector in general education” in the GEB.

The combined communications program of theHD and GEB encompassed a broad range ofinitiatives, practices, and research projects,

including support for meetings, fellowships, publications, and research projects. And despitethe strictures against involving itself in propagan-da and direct political and social intervention,Rockefeller philanthropy supported a variety ofinstitutions and practices which were consideredto be inherently communicative in nature, and relevant to how the public appreciation of culturedeveloped. These included not only broadcastingand motion pictures, but also drama, music, hand-icrafts, printing, illustrating, museums andlibraries. Moreover, consistent with its mandate

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to help improve international understanding, theprogram in communications sought to overcomenational partisanship and encourage internationalcooperation. Support also was given to venturesin short-wave radio transmission, to microphotog-raphy, and to establishing English as a universallanguage through the Basic English program pioneered by I.A. Richards.

What the various forms of communication practice and technology had in common was thepotential to bring the highest values of civilizationto the contemporary world. To be sure, it wasmaintained that mass communications wereincreasingly becoming vehicles for mass enter-tainment, to the detriment of elevating publictaste. Yet the officers of the HD did not believethat the mass media were destined to provideonly the banal and trivial material that the publicseemed to demand. They did not agree withthose who claimed that the educational and cul-tural potential of communications technologycould only be realized within a publicly supportednon-commercial sector; they held that the mediacould elevate the cultural tastes of the public within a largely commercial framework, providedthat the fundamental changes were undertaken.

Nevertheless, it was believed that mass com-munications, as they had developed within thecommercial sector, had become overtly con-cerned with controlling the largest and mostwidely dispersed audience possible. Correspond-ingly, the material transmitted was orientedtowards short-term gratification rather thantowards cultural elevation. The HD took theposition, consonant with the ideas of HaroldAdams Innis, that the development of mass mediawithin a commercial framework had led to a biastowards the “space-binding” aspect of communi-cations to the detriment of the “time-binding”aspect of communications.

One of the major goals of the communicationsprogram was to encourage the time-bindingaspect of communications, thereby bringing itmore into balance with the predominate space-binding aspect. Specifically, this involved thesupport for initiatives in mass communicationsoriented towards a more informed and discrimi-

nating citizenry. In order to help develop the time-binding aspect of communications technology, theHD underwrote projects which would producecountervailing knowledge about communications.This explains why the support for public institu-tions as sites for communication formed such animportant component of the Rockefeller program.

It was through schools, universities, museums,libraries, archives, public broadcasting organiza-tions, and drama societies that the space-bindingbias of new technologies could be balanced andcorrected. The glue that held this together wasnew forms of knowledge, which would pressureprivate institutions to be more publicly responsible,while at the same time generating a reservoir ofknowledge that would make publicly rooted mediapractice possible.

The Rockefeller Foundationand the Tuberculosis Programin France, 1917-1922

by Andrés Horacio Reggiani

n July 1917, just a few months after the UnitedStates had entered the First World War, a smallgroup of American public health experts

appointed by the Rockefeller Foundation (RF)arrived in France to develop and coordinate admin-istrative and technical measures to curb the spreadof tuberculosis. The fundamental goals of theCommission for the Prevention of Tuberculosis inFrance —also known as the Rockefeller Mission—were aimed at hygiene education and the modern-ization of health-care services.

The records of the RF’s International HealthBoard (IHB) offer a detailed account of the activi-ties carried out by the tuberculosis program andprovide an insightful perspective on public healthconditions in France. The most relevant sourcesin this collection include the regular reports fromthe Mission’s Director to the Executive Committeeof the IHB. They also contain American health offi-cials’ confidential impressions of French methodsof handling fundamental problems of socialhygiene. Also included in the collection is an ex-tensive set of propaganda and educational material.

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I

Over two hundred American private charitiesand philanthropic organizations participated in var-ious types of war-relief operations throughoutEurope during World War I. More than forty ofthese institutions were devoted to assisting Frenchwar victims, and by 1916 as many as eight differentorganizations were concerned specifically with theaid of French tuberculous civilians and military.The Rockefeller Mission was thus one among alarge group of organizations seeking to help thedisease-ridden populations, but in terms of thenature and goals of its assistance, the RF followedan independent course of action whenever possi-ble. The major exception to its independentapproach was the educational and propagandaoperations it conducted with the American RedCross. The IHB discouraged the seemingly wide-spread view that the Mission would be a source offinancial support for the various worthy, yet mostlyuncoordinated and competing, tuberculosis reliefagencies. American and French field personnel

warned the Board’s Executive Committee thatproviding such support risked not only wastingvaluable resources, but also would compromisethe RF’s reputation. Any undertaking was to begrounded, therefore, on a concrete set of feasiblegoals and a carefully laid-out plan to assure anefficient use of the funds that the RF was willingto commit.

The idea of a tuberculosis program came out ofa report submitted in the fall of 1916 by WarwickGreene, director of the RF’s Commission for WarAid, who warned about the catastrophic increaseof the “white plague.” In early 1917 the IHB sentHerman Biggs, Commissioner of Health of theState of New York, to assess the situation inFrance and to inquire about the feasibility of pro-viding some sort of assistance. A few monthslater, the Board established the Commission forthe Prevention of Tuberculosis in France andappointed as director Livingston Farrand,President of the University of Colorado andExecutive Secretary of the National Associationfor the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis.

The Mission’s direct involvement in Franceextended over a period of almost six years, from1917 into 1922. Its main field operations com-prised three major undertakings. It set up andreorganized a network of health care services inrural and urban areas. It conducted a nationwidecampaign of health education using five motor-ized travelling units staffed by physicians, nurses,and technicians, and equipped with audio-visualand printed material. The Commission alsoestablished and supported a school of public-health visitors based upon the Anglo-Americanmodel and introduced a centralized statisticalmethod to keep track of all reported cases oftuberculosis. Its work also involved political persuasion: Right after the war, the Mission’s topofficials began lobbying French political and medical leaders to convince them of the need toadopt a comprehensive national health policy.

In 1922 the Mission transferred most of its pro-grams to the French Comité National de Défensecontre la Tuberculose and to the various local

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Members of the IHB’s Commission for the Prevention ofTuberculosis in France in Chartres in February 1918 looking at posters developed as part of the public health campaign: (left to right) James Alexander Miller, Hermann G. Place, andLivingston Farrand.

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tuberculosis associations. This transfer ofresponsibilities to local authorities did not mean,however, the end of the RF’s involvement inFrance. As they became more familiar with theirhost country, American officials grew increasinglyskeptical about the possibility of effecting anyenduring change in health policy-making unlessthe work already done was continued by selectiveassistance to those institutions decidedly commit-ted to the methods introduced by the Americans.Thus, through the Paris Office of the IHB, thefoundation continued to channel funds to a fewcarefully chosen programs, mostly in the form ofsubsidies to schools of public-health visitors inParis, Lille, Nantes, Bordeaux, Strasbourg,Marseille, and Lyon. It also provided scholar-ships for nurses and physicians to undergo special training in tuberculosis at the PasteurInstitute, and subventions for propaganda andpopular education campaigns carried out byFrench organizations. Another, less overt yetvery important form of influence consisted ofbringing promising young physicians to the U.S.for training in new methods of public-healthadministration and organization. The IHB alsoinvited prominent doctors and hygiénistes to visitsome of the most advanced medical centers inAmerica.

What was the legacy of the RF’s public healthprogram in France? I find its historical signifi-cance in two distinct sets of issues. First, themedical, educational, technical, and administrativemethods introduced by the Mission made evenmore evident than before the flaws and short-comings of French public-health policies. Thiscontrast in policy and medical styles was manifestin the different attitudes towards concrete issues,such as the compulsory reporting of tuberculosis,adopted by French and American doctors. WhileRF officials never hid their pessimistic views ofFrench bureaucratic and cultural attitudes—theyjust restricted them to confidential reports— it isundeniable that their physicians and nurses beganor stimulated the modernization of health-carestructures and medical practices. The short-term

impact of the Mission’s activities can be seen inthe creation of local tuberculosis associations andsocial hygiene boards; the successful introductionof a newly conceived dispensary, staffed full-time;and the establishment of schools of public healthvisitors in most of the major cities. Moreover, by bringing some of the most talented Frenchstudents, physicians, and nurses to work togetherwith their American counterparts, the Missioninitiated and encouraged a process of socializa-tion among medical experts that would have alasting impact upon their formative experienceand professional careers. It will be of little sur-prise, then, to find that some of the most persis-tent criticisms of France’s health policies in lateryears came from those who had either workedwith the Mission or visited American institutions.

Secondly, the RF’s role in the modernization ofFrench public health necessarily addresses thelarger, more contemporary debate about“Americanization.” In recent years the topic hasreceived the increasing attention of historians,political scientists, and economists on both sidesof the Atlantic. Most of these studies have con-centrated on post-World War II political, econom-ic, diplomatic, or cultural issues. The study ofthe Commission for the Prevention ofTuberculosis offers three distinct perspectivesthrough which to test current arguments aboutAmerican influence in France and elsewhere.First, we can see the reaction generated by thearrival of American views, methods, technology,and human resources into a society that had con-tributed some of the most important discoveriesand innovations in the history of Western medi-cine. Second, the Rockefeller Mission stood outto their French hosts, above all, as an “American”enterprise — indeed, the French called it laMission américaine. To nearly all the peasant andworking-class families and schoolchildren of the villages visited by the travelling units, these“soldiers of science” were their first objective“encounter” with America. Third, the tuberculo-sis program was conceived and conducted as aprivate, independently run, philanthropic opera-

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tion, even after the U.S. had entered the war onthe French side. The Mission’s staff reportedonly to the Executive Committee of the IHB inNew York and had no formal ties to American gov-ernmental agencies. These issues might helpexpand our understanding of the process of theconstruction of the welfare state by focussing ourattention to its fieldwork, where state policy inter-sects with modern philanthropy, French andAmerican mutual perceptions, and technocraticclaims to rational administration.

Research Grant Program

For 1997 the Rockefeller Archive Center will havetwo components to its program of Grants forTravel and Research. In addition to the regularcompetitive program that is open to researchers inany discipline engaged in research that requiresuse of its collections, the Center will awardbetween five and ten grants to support researchon topics related to the continent of Africa. Thecompetition for these targeted grants will use thesame application form and follow the same guide-lines as the general program.

Applicants from within the U.S. and Canada mayrequest support of up to $1,500; because of theadditional cost of travel, applicants from othernations may request up to $2,000. The deadlinefor applications is November 30, 1996; grant recipi-ents will be announced in March 1997. Applica-tion forms and additional information are availablefrom the Center’s director, Darwin H. Stapleton.

Forty-two scholars have received stipends toconduct research at the Rockefeller ArchiveCenter during 1996. These grant recipients, theirinstitutions, and research topics are listed below. Rima D. AppleProfessor, Department of Consumer Science and the Women’s Studies Program, University of Wisconsin-Madison.“The Perfect Mother: Mothers and Scientific Mothering, 1850-1990s.”John BaickPh.D. Candidate in History, New York University.“Reorienting Culture: New York Elites and the Turn toward East Asia.”

Cheryl BarkeyPh.D. Candidate in History, University of California-Davis.“Gender, Science and Modernity: Reproduction in Republican China.”Josep Lluis BaronaVilarHonorary Professor of the History of Science,University of Valencia.“The Rockefeller Foundation and the Promotion ofScience in Spain, 1913-1939.”Jayne BeilkeAssistant Professor, Secondary, Higher and Foundationsof Education, Ball State University.“The Role of the General Education Board FellowshipProgram in the Production of a Black EducationalLeadership Cadre.”Heather BellPh.D. Candidate in Modern History and Rhodes Research Fellow, St. Hilda’s College, University of Oxford.“A Comparative History of Yellow Fever in Africa, circa 1830-1960.”Anne BowlerAssistant Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Delaware.“‘The Scientific Study of Prostitution’: Katherine Bement Davis, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and the Bureau of Social Hygiene.”

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The machine shop, ca. 1930, at the Institute of Physics andChemistry in Madrid, Spain, which received support from theInternational Education Board. The development of science in Spain is one of many topics that this year’s Grant-in-Aid recipients will pursue in the Center’s collections.

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William HaasAssistant Professor, Department of History, Fort Lewis College.“Red and Expert: The Life of Robert Hodes.”Rebecca HayesPh.D. Candidate, Social Foundations of Education,University of Virginia.“George Edgar Vincent: An Intellectual and Professional Journey through the Progressive Era and into the 20th Century.”Soma HewaProfessor, Department of Behavioral Sciences, Mount Royal College, Calgary.“Philanthropy and Cultural Context: RockefellerPhilanthropy and Cultural Dialectics.”Rogers HollingsworthProfessor, Department of History, University of Wisconsin-Madison.“Why Some Universities and Medical Centers Make Major Discoveries in Bio-medical Science, but Most Make None.”Clifton HoodAssistant Professor, Department of History, Hobart and William Smith Colleges.“The Political Economy of New York City.”Meg JacobsPh.D. Candidate in History, University of Virginia and Predoctoral Fellow, Smithsonian Institution.“The Politics of Purchasing Power: Economic PolicyMaking in the American Consumer Society, 1919-1959.”Elizabeth JanettaTeaching Fellow, Department of History, University of Pittsburgh.“From Independence to Revolution: Public Health in Cuba, 1895-1959.”Shirish KavadiSenior Research Officer, The Foundation for Research in Community Health, India.“Public Health and Medical Research in India: The Role of the Rockefeller Foundation, 1913-1971.”John LeveillePh.D. Candidate in Sociology, University of California-San Diego.“The Rise and Fall of Psychoanalysis within AmericanPsychiatry: A Sociological History, 1930-1980.”M. Susan LindeeAssistant Professor, Department of the History andSociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania.“Subservient Only to Truth: Marie Curie and 20th-Century Science.”

Laura BriggsPh.D. Candidate, Department of American Civilization,Brown University and Visiting Scholar, Department of Anthropology, University of Arizona.“Reform, Medicine, and Empire: Puerto Rico and the Development of Birth Control and Social Hygiene in the U.S., 1910-1960.”Susan CahnAssistant Professor, Department of History, SUNY Buffalo.“Coming of Age in the Modern South: Race, Sex, and Region in the Lives of Female Adolescents.”Nicholas CullatherAssistant Professor, Department of History, Indiana University.“The Rockefeller Foundation, the International RiceResearch Institute, and the Green Revolution.”Tracey DeutschPh.D. Candidate in History, University of Wisconsin-Madison.“The Politics of Mass Consumption: Gender, Retailing and the State, 1920-1945.”Diane DossoPh.D. Candidate in Epistemology and History of Sciences, University D. Diderot, Paris.“The Scientific Mobilization of France during World War II, 1938-1948.”Otniel DrorPh.D. Candidate in History, Princeton University.“The Emotional Perspective: The Study of Emotions in20th-Century Physiology and Psychosomatic Medicine.”Marianne FedunkiwPh.D. Candidate, Institute for the History and Philosophyof Science and Technology, University of Toronto.“The Business of Medicine: A New Model for MedicalEducation in North America, 1919-1939.”Giuliana GemelliAssociate Professor of French History,Department of History, University of Bologna.“Frederic C. Lane: A Biographical Essay.”Dianne GlaveLecturer and Fellow, Department of History, Loyola Marymount University.“The Gospel of Safe Farming: African-American FarmLife, Conservation, and the Environment in the South inthe Progressive Era.”Richard S. GlotzerAssociate Professor and Chair, Department of Africanaand Latino Studies, SUNY Oneonta.“Rockefeller Philanthropy, Anglo-American Relations, and Post-War Africa.”

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Yanek MieczkowskiPh.D. Candidate in American History,Columbia University.“Gerald Ford and America in the Age of Limits.”Lion MuradAssociate Researcher, Centre de Recherche MedecineMaladie et Sciences Sociales, Paris.“History of Public Health in France: Under the Eye of America, 1917-1941.”Suzanne NewmanPh.D. Candidate, Department of Art History, University of New Mexico.“Institutionalizing Taste: The Indian Arts Fund and the Aestheticization of Pueblo Pottery.”Manon NiquetteAssistant Professor, Department of Communication and Information, Universite Laval, Quebec.“Exhibitions as Media: The Rockefeller Foundation’sSupport for Science Museums, 1934-1943.”

Rebecca PelsPh.D. Candidate in History, University of Virginia.“Creating African Studies: The Politics of Area Studies in the U.S., 1945-1965.”Rebecca PlantPh.D. Candidate in History, The Johns Hopkins University.“Governing the Unconscious: Psychoanalysis andAmerican Culture in World War II and the Cold War.”Anne Marie RaffertySenior Lecturer and Director, London School of Hygiene& Tropical Medicine, University of London.“The Politics of Patronage: Central and Eastern EuropeanPublic Health Nursing, 1919-1939.”Jonathan ReesPh.D. Candidate in History, University of Wisconsin-Madison.“Managing the Mills: Labor Policy in the American Steel Industry, 1892-1937.”

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This dispensary, its staff, and their specially equipped bus in Bordeaux in 1923 were part of the public health campaign conducted by theComité National de Défense contre la Tuberculose with Rockefeller Foundation support. Public health in France is among the topics thatwill be examined by researchers at the Archive Center this year.

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Michael RhulPh.D. Candidate in History, Ohio University.“Neither Enemies nor Friends: Juan Peron and the U.S.,1945-1955.”Marsha S. RoseAssistant Professor, Department of Sociology and SocialPsychology, Florida Atlantic University.“The Legacy of Wealth: Gender and Philanthropy among the Rockefellers.”Joshua N. RuxinFellow, The Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, London.“Malnutrition in the 20th Century: Science, Politics, and Hunger.”Oliver SchmidtResearcher, European University Institute and Visiting Scholar, Harvard University. “German Elites Abroad: The German-American Exchange Programs, 1945-1955.”Armando SolorzanoAssistant Professor, Department of Family and Consumer Studies, University of Utah. “The Contributions of the Rockefeller Foundation toMedical Sciences and Medical Education in Mexico.”Julianne UnselPh.D. Candidate in Women’s History, Department ofHistory, University of Wisconsin-Madison.“From War to Peace: The Demobilization andReconversion of the U.S. after World War I.”Patrick ZylbermanAssociate Researcher, Center de Recherche MedecineMaladie et Sciences Sociales, Paris.“History of Public Health in France: Under the Eye of America, 1917-1941.”

The Republican Party in theSouth in the 1968 PresidentialElection

by Elena Vorobiova

or my dissertation about the developmentof the Republican party in the South and itsattempts to attract Southern voters to its

ranks in the 1968 presidential election, I visitedthe Rockefeller Archive Center to examine theNelson A. Rockefeller papers and the papers ofpolitical analyst Graham Molitor.

The main focus of my research was theMolitor papers. Graham Molitor had been hiredby Rockefeller in 1964 primarily to monitor BarryGoldwater during Rockefeller’s campaign for theRepublican presidential nomination. The Molitorpapers from 1964 introduced me to the situationwithin the GOP and to the reasons for the conser-vatives’ success during the second half of the1960s. They also contained abundant materialconcerning the 1968 presidential election, suchas Republican party briefing books and news-letters, voting participation analysis, political pro-files of the states, Republican national conventionmaterial, newspaper clippings, and material onthe positions taken by the main contenders fromboth parties, including Hubert H. Humphrey,Robert F. Kennedy, Richard M. Nixon, andRonald W. Reagan.

Material from the Nelson A. RockefellerGubernatorial Press Office Public Relations filesgave me firsthand information on many positionstaken by Governor Rockefeller during his cam-paign in 1968. The press office maintained abinder of positions which the Domestic ResearchStaff recommended to Rockefeller and examplesof answers to questions that reporters might askat press conferences. Rockefeller’s staff did agreat job putting together information on thepoints of view of different candidates, comparingand contrasting their positions, analyzing the cur-rent situation, and giving advice about how toapproach certain issues and how to use oppo-nents’ weaknesses for Rockefeller’s own benefit.These materials allow researchers to reconstructpolitical portraits of the major candidates in the1968 bid for the presidency.

A preliminary analysis of these materialsreveals that the Republican party had seriousplans to win Southern voters in 1968. However,this GOP “southern strategy” was not its mainemphasis and, as documents show, there weremany other parts of the country, such as theNortheast, that Republicans considered impor-tant for their victory in November and into whichthey channeled their resources. The efforts ofAlabama Governor George C. Wallace to form anorganized protest movement among Southern

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that fall the GOP’s nominee for president,Richard M. Nixon, concentrated only on theBorder Southern states, leaving the rest of theregion to Wallace.

The material I examined at the RockefellerArchive Center indicates that in 1968 Rockefellerhad no special plans to attract Southern votersand concentrated his main efforts on the regionsof traditional Republican support, rather than pursuing a risky path to the former Confederacy.His positions, compared with Nixon’s and espe-cially Reagan’s, were too liberal to attract whiteconservatives in the South and not liberal enoughto attract Southern blacks, who viewed theDemocrats as their advocates on such issues ascivil rights. The documents also indicate thatRockefeller considered Nixon to be his mainopponent for the nomination, and accordingly hecriticized Nixon on social and foreign relationsissues.

Party unity was one of the main themes in theRepublican campaign for the presidency. The documents reveal that Rockefeller and other GOPcandidates were very dedicated to preservingparty unity, and even strong disagreementsbetween the conservative and moderate wings ofthe party were not allowed to obstruct this objec-tive. The party had learned from its mistake of1964 and sought a moderate candidate capable ofattracting a wide range of voters all across thecountry.

My research at the Rockefeller Archive Centerhas substantially enriched my knowledge andunderstanding of the positions of the majorRepublican presidential contenders in 1968. Fora Russian scholar it was a rare opportunity to seeprimary sources firsthand. With additional infor-mation from the Richard Nixon archives, theRepublican party National Committee papers atthe National Archives, and the George Wallacepapers at the Alabama Department of Archivesand History, I now have a more comprehensivepicture of the political events in 1968 and theRepublican party’s successful efforts to win theonce solidly Democratic South.

whites were viewed as a potential threat toRepublican efforts to capture Southern votes fortheir column. But there is no indication that theGOP or any of its candidates had plans to negoti-ate with Wallace or to organize a strong attemptto contest his stronghold in the Deep South.Southern Republicans played an important role atthe party’s national convention in Miami Beach asthey influenced both the adoption of the platformand the selection of the vice-presidential candi-date, Spiro Agnew. But in the three-party race

12 Spring 1996


This paid political advertisement for Nelson A. Rockefellerappeared in the August 4, 1968 Miami Herald during Rockefeller’scampaign for the Republican presidential nomination.

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Why I Run.America cries out for a leader.Events overwhelm us. Change outruns us.

Headlines deliver us our daily jolt.“Things are in the saddle, and ride

mankind”–this warning we have let come true.I run for President because I do not believe

this must happen to us.I believe we can recapture control of things.I believe we can end the drift, the doubt, the

division.I intend to say how, in person, in newspapers,

on television. I intend to state what course Ibelieve America must follow.

My beliefs will not be tailored to please thevoters of this region or that. What I believe inNew York, I believe in Nebraska. And I willanswer for it throughout the campaign.

I do not take my case to Republicans alone.It is a nation and not just a party which needsleading, healing uniting.

Nelson A. Rockefeller

Rockefeller Public HealthAssistance in Chile

by Vicki Weinberg

esearch into the records of the RockefellerFoundation’s activity in Chilean health caresuggests two points. The Rockefeller

Foundation (RF) was basic to development of themedical system in Chile, helping to make it thelargest state-sponsored health-care system in theAmericas. Equally significant, indigent womenand their infants were fundamental to Chile’smedical system. The combination of Chileanspecialization with the Foundation’s desire toestablish community-based, social, preventivemedicine made Chile one of Latin America’s cen-ters in providing for maternal and infant health.The lives of impoverished women and children,therefore, were key to international and nationalmedico-political interactions.

The RF’s work in Chile had inauspicious roots.In 1919, an RF representative conducted an infor-mal survey of Chilean public health. He under-scored with amazement the high level of infantdeaths in Chile. This represented a new chal-lenge for the RF, for in Brazil, where the RF hadfocused its public health work in South America,the main problem was epidemics of disease, suchas yellow fever. Epidemics were less of a prob-lem in Chile, and the fact that Chile’s high rate ofinfant and maternal mortality did not result fromepidemics raised questions about communityhealth programs. In the 1930s, as part of a largerinstitutional redirection, the RF reviewed its LatinAmerican policy outside of Brazil and, seeing noimprovement in Chile, undertook what became aforty-year commitment to preventive communityhealth care in Chile.

RF leaders at first envisioned Argentina as thefocus of its expanded South American health program in the 1930s. But turbulent politics inPeronist Argentina, coupled with perceived anti-Semitism and independence among Argentinephysicians, prompted Lewis W. Hackett, RF advi-

sor for South America, to rethink further invest-ment there. In contrast, political stability, eagerstate and medical leaders, pressure from U.S.scholars, and the tremendous rate of infant mor-tality were all factors which drew the RF’s inter-est towards Chile. Chile had one of the highestinfant and maternal mortality rates in theAmericas. Approximately 300 out of every 1,000infants died before their first birthday. Afteryears of addressing these issues without success,Chileans welcomed RF involvement. EliteChileans encouraged RF efforts, for they sawinfant mortality as a profound threat to the country’s development and as a source of nation-al shame. Public health for poor mothers andchildren became a major social issue.

In the eyes of the RF’s leaders, Chile offeredfree reign to implement their ideas about solvingbasic social problems, like infant mortality, usingfewer resources than were required for massiveepidemiological control. Underlying the RF’sthinking were implicit expectations that, unlikeepidemics, solving infant mortality would be politically noble and also would have an eventual,natural conclusion. Babies would not continue todie after the RF introduced modern medicine,health training, and maternal education. A rela-tively small investment, they hoped, would resultin great success. RF officials did expect thatChile would be an important site for their medicalactivity in South America. They understood theirrole to be that of a modest benefactor untilChileans were trained to take over public healththemselves.

With financial support from the government ofChile, foundation representatives and reformistphysicians began to look for ways to teachChilean medical personnel how to ameliorateChilean health care. First, RF and Chilean per-sonnel constructed a community health clinic inone of Santiago’s poorest barrios, Quinta Normal.Unlike previous clinics, Quinta Normal was to actas a social medical clinic geared toward preven-tive and community care. It specialized in adulttuberculosis and in child and maternal care.Rockefeller personnel planned for Quinta Normal

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to address infant health less on an individualbasis and more as a social issue requiring com-munity-oriented nutritional and vaccination pro-grams, maternal education and infant-maternalhealth care.

Along with the Quinta Normal clinic, RF offi-cials established the Chilean Institutes for PublicHealth, Public Health Nursing, and Sanitation.They revamped the medical school curriculum,previously based on surgical and curative care,and provided U.S. fellowships, equipment, andrepresentatives to enact changes in medical train-ing. Foundation and Chilean leaders correlatedQuinta Normal activity and Institute education tofurnish hands-on experience to newly trainedpublic health nurses, physicians and Chilean fellows. This coordinated approach eventuallyproved relatively successful in offering communi-ty-based public health care.

In the short run, however, U.S. public healthnurses sent to Chile expressed frustration at con-ditions in Quinta Normal. They lacked sufficientresources and were overrun with clients. Nurseslike Elizabeth Brackett faced conflict and difficul-ties from several directions. “Although I haveread about the living conditions of the poorerclasses in Chile,” Brackett wrote in her diary onJuly 26, 1942, “I had to see them to grasp theirsignificance. I have seen isolated instances ofthe stark poverty observed today among the peo-ple with whom I have worked in New York, butwhere there it is an exception, here it is the gen-eral rule.” For Brackett and U.S. physicians, theshockingly high rate of infant deaths in Santiagowas understood less by empirical data than bypersonal observation. Their provocative reportspressed issues of infancy and motherhood to theforefront of RF considerations and further politi-cized them in the U.S. and Chile.

In addressing infant health, RF personnel,Chilean physicians, and U.S. public health nurseslike Brackett experienced both problems withconditions in Quinta Normal and conflict amongthemselves. Benjamin Viel, the first Chilean RFfellow and later head of Quinta Normal, exempli-fies such friction. Like many male physicians

from Chile, Viel made clear to the NorthAmerican female nurses that domestic nurseswere unnecessary and ignorant, and that theycame from the wrong “class of girls.” Previously,Chilean social care had been provided by femalesocial workers; as a result, Chilean doctorsthought that nurses were women who provedincapable of working as social workers. To makematters worse, the few Chilean nurses in practicespecialized in surgery rather than communicablediseases or pediatrics, and had no public healthexperience. While Chilean physicians distrustednurses from both countries, the RF required thatthey treat North American nursing personnel asequals. From the RF’s perspective, modern med-icine required public health nurses who couldundertake clinical work independently, withoutthe constant, expensive involvement of doctors.Moreover, RF leaders presumed that Chileanmothers would share their maternal activity morefreely with female health practitioners.Understanding infant health as intimately relatedto maternal conduct, gendered access to indigenthomes was considered essential by RF represen-tatives. Once again, concentration on infant andmaternal health influenced social and medicalrelations in Chile.

The experience of one North American nursein Chile is instructive. Mary Elizabeth Tennant,a public health nurse with international experi-ence, was sent to evaluate the possibility of found-ing a Public Health Nursing Institute in Chile.Within three months, Tennant sent her analysisof Chilean nursing and general medical condi-tions to RF leaders as well as to principal Chileanstate, academic and medical figures. Nursing stu-dents received almost no practical training andtheoretical instruction at the University of Chile’snursing program, she explained, and they lackedtextbooks and such basic facilities as a library ora laboratory. Tennant argued that nursing wastaught as if it were of little concern to “modern”medicine, and she vehemently criticized physi-cians’ practice of educating Chilean nurses pre-dominantly in surgical nursing, a practice thathelped doctors but did little for the community.

14 Spring 1996


Tennant concluded that nursing could effectivelybe taught only by other nurses, and not bypatronizing and disinterested doctors.

Tennant’s main point was simple: Since Chile’snational health problems were infant mortalityand tuberculosis, then nurses should be taught atan institute, by other nurses, and given practicalexperience at Quinta Normal in the areas of pedi-atrics, obstetrics and communicable diseases.Tennant’s report prompted the RF to act but wasnot received with enthusiasm by many Chileanphysicians. Against these doctors’ wishes, theChilean government and the University of Chilefollowed Tennant’s suggestions.

As the presidential election of 1942approached, relations between the RF and Chilebecame more clearly political. Following what

Chileans considered to be the first, leftist-oriented,reformist presidency, the election was seen bymany as crucial for the future of domestic politics,and health care was understood to be a decisivepolitical issue. But there was little agreementabout how to expand or fund health care. TheRF’s involvement in health care, key analysts con-cluded, would improve the medical system anddiminish its politicization because these improve-ments would not be undertaken by a specificdomestic faction. Moreover, RF participationwould limit state expenditures. As Minister ofHealth, Dr. Salvador Allende spoke for many whenhe advocated RF activities in Quinta Normal.Sawyer’s diary suggests that heated domestic poli-tics helps to explain why the RF received such awarm and desperate welcome in Chile.

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In January 1919 Dr. Robert W. Richardson, the physician in charge of the Braden Copper Company’s plant in Rancagua, Chile, contacted theInternational Health Board about health conditions in the mining camps 7,000 feet above sea level. This photograph of the camp at Sewellon December 15, 1918, shows a parade that was part of the festivities for the opening of the target-shooting range, one of many recreationaland welfare activities conducted at the camp.

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Hoping to separate politics from medicine, RFleaders searched for medico-politicians that theyconsidered to be “apolitical.” The logic was two-fold: First, they assumed an apolitical physiciancould withstand sharp changes in governmentsand thus maintain policy continuity, and second,the RF considered itself to be an apolitical, solelyphilanthropic organization. Explicit in Hackett’srecords is the RF’s deep-seated desire to depoliti-cize health care, but also clear is the implicitrecognition that health care, particularly in Chile,was itself a fundametally political issue. Thedilemma created by searching for an apoliticalhealth policy would plague RF leaders in Chilethrough the 1970s. In 1941-1942, facing a con-tentious presidential election which would alteressentially future medical care in Chile, RF lead-ers did not remove themselves entirely from poli-tics. In 1941, Hackett and Sawyer agreed not toplace additional funds in Chile until after the 1942election. Apoliticism for Rockefeller staff in thisinstance translated to support for centrist politi-cians, and to forewarn Chilean elites that furtherRF aid was dependent upon a favorable electoraloutcome.

Perhaps to preserve their vision of apoliticism,RF officials justified their opposition to certainmedico-politicians by conceiving of them as politi-cians first and physicians second. Physicians likeAllende were described as politicians and onlynominally as doctors, meaning that they were toopolitical, too leftist, and too independent for RFsupport. Not only did Chileans understand theimportance of the RF in domestic politics, butthey also appreciated the importance of Chileanpolitics to RF programs.

Happy with what they saw as a centrist-reformist shift in government in 1942, RF repre-sentatives expanded their involvement in Chile.They chose Dr. John J. Janney to be their repre-sentative in Santiago and gave him funding,equipment, fellowships and increased personnelfor Quinta Normal. Janney was a fantasticchoice, for Chileans perceived him to be less aforeigner and more of a “Chilean” born in theU.S.; indeed, when he was recalled to the U.S.years later, the Chilean elite protested in a letter

signed by the most important medical and politi-cal leaders. Becoming even more a part ofChilean medico-politics, the RF in 1954 supportedthe construction of the National Health Service,which was the largest state-sponsored medicalsystem in the Americas. Rather than having ashort-term, light involvement in health politics inChile, the Rockefeller Foundation became a criti-cal and respected player.

The Rockefeller Foundation’sSupport of the Institute ofPacific Relations

by Lawrence T. Woods

ince the student of any nongovernmentalorganization is well advised to examine thesources of the funding for that operation, I

reviewed the holdings of the Rockefeller ArchiveCenter (RAC) to collect material for a study ofCanadian participation in the Institute of PacificRelations (IPR) via the Canadian Institute ofInternational Affairs (CIIA), which served as thesecretariat for the Canadian national council ofthe IPR. Both organizations received significantsupport from the Rockefeller Foundation (RF).There have been many critical assessments of thephilanthropic practices of institutions like the RF,but my research suggests that foundation deci-sions may sometimes be less than sinister, andthat the efforts of foundation officers to carry outtheir fiduciary responsibilities may well beadmirably thorough and evenhanded. The RF’ssupport of the IPR is a case in point.

The Rockefeller Foundation is depicted oftenas a prime villain in the death of the IPR as aresult of the decision to discontinue its funding ofthe international IPR and the American IPR(AIPR) beyond 1952. This move has been seenas what one might call the ultimate act of politicalinfluence and is one which continues to sparktinges of consternation from IPR veterans. TheIPR was dissolved shortly after losing its RF fund-

16 Spring 1996


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ing and the CIIA, which also saw its RF grantscease in the early 1950s, has been unable to main-tain the profile such funds had helped it attain.The fate of these two organizations tells us some-thing about the dangers which loom when non-governmental organizations become dependentupon funding from a single source, philanthropicor otherwise.

Between 1925 and 1952, the IPR receivedapproximately $1.5-1.8 million from Rockefellersources in support of its general operatingexpenses and international research program.John D. Rockefeller, Jr. began contributing to theinternational and American activities of the IPR inresponse to an application received prior to whatbecame the inaugural conference of the Institutein 1925. Other family members soon becameinvolved: his wife Abby became an AIPR memberin 1926; one son, John D. Rockefeller 3rd, servedon the staff of the American delegation to the1929 IPR conference in Kyoto; and another son,Laurance S. Rockefeller, joined his mother andbrother as a member of and financial contributorto the AIPR. In 1927 the Laura SpelmanRockefeller Memorial became an additionalRockefeller source for the AIPR and the PacificCouncil (PC), the Institute’s international execu-tive body; this support was taken over by the RFin 1929 following a reorganization of Rockefellercorporate philanthropy.

Records show that during the years 1929 to1940, the RF annually accounted for between 30%and 56% of the PC’s total receipts, with the high-est figures occurring towards the end of this peri-od. These figures do not even include a sizeableand separately managed $90,000 grant received in1938. As early as the 1930s RF personnel hadexpressed concern about the apparent depen-dence of the PC on the foundation. Indeed, theduration of RF funding for the PC and IPR wasunusual: many other groups funded by the RFhad their support phased out over a much short-er timespan. But not until 1946 did the RF beginthe process of tapering off and eventually endingsupport for the PC and AIPR.

With the end of World War II in 1945, the RFsought to curtail its commitments to non-universi-

ty international agencies around the world, argu-ing that such organizations should receive sup-port from sources within their own national clien-teles. The desire to taper off IPR grants is thusneither unusual nor surprising when we remem-ber the relatively long run of RF support the IPRhad enjoyed, but this policy change makes thedecision to phase out grants to the IPR evenmore predictable. In 1946 the RF provided theIPR what was understood to be a tapered termi-nal grant running through 1950, and in 1950 pro-vided a two-year extension at the IPR’s request.

Having thus been associated with the IPR for aquarter-century and having been by far theInstitute’s most generous and consistent philan-thropic supporter, the RF, one might think, couldonly be regarded in a positive light by theInstitute and its followers by the early 1950s, butthe RF’s decision not to consider further fundingafter 1952 has stolen the spotlight and negatedearlier contributions.

My review of RF records shows this negativefocus to be misplaced, but it also suggests whereit may have originated. Foundations typicallychange their funding priorities over time and thusprefer to provide seed grants of limited durationin order to avoid creating the expectation that thedonor will or should provide continuous support.This sort of expectation appears to have been cre-ated in the RF-IPR case. The seeds of later mis-understandings and errant expectations may havebeen sewn as early as August 1929, when JeromeD. Greene, chair of the AIPR board, incorporatedinto his plea for additional funding the idea that,whereas it was plainly undesirable for an interna-tional organization like the IPR to continue to relylargely on funding from one country, the diplo-matic and political circumstances of the day madeit “more important to have the [1929 IPR]Conference [in Kyoto] adequately prepared forand carried through than to insist on a propersharing of the burden. Such insistence wouldvery probably have wrecked the organization at atime when its failure would be peculiarly unfortu-nate.” Somewhat prophetically, this logic seemsto have remained in the minds of IPR leaderswho followed Greene, despite his warning.

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had been paying special attention to their IPRdossier since May 1945, when the FBI arrestedemployees of the IPR’s New York-based interna-tional secretariat. The two bulky RF files contain-ing correspondence with Alfred Kohlberg, a disaf-fected AIPR member who likely later promptedMcCarthy to set his sights on the IPR, begin inNovember 1944 and are largely comprised ofKohlberg’s criticisms of RF support of the IPR,alongside the RF’s polite acknowledgements ofhis letters and internal memos refuting hisclaims. By 1950, as the result of domestic politi-cal circumstances and Lovett’s reservations aboutthe IPR, RF personnel were continually seekingreference checks from persons at the highest levels of academe, business, and government —including J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI — withregard to the worthiness of the IPR and its officers, especially Holland. Favorable responsesoutnumbered negative comments by an over-whelming margin, leading RF officials to confi-dently and repeatedly recommend the extensionof funding to the IPR.

The RF tried to withstand the various pressures and to support the IPR through to thescheduled end of its grant extension in 1952.Rusk, in particular, comes across as more thansupportive of the IPR. Rusk was for a time theIPR’s best protector and to expect him, uponbecoming RF president, to overturn or ignore anearlier decision to end an unusually long series of grants seems misguided.

Our understanding of the RF’s role withrespect to the IPR has been clouded by the factthat the internal RF concerns about the IPR’sdependency upon it reasserted themselves during the early stages of McCarthy’s anti-communist crusade. Against the backdrop ofMcCarthyism, the understandable philanthropicdesire to preclude dependence seems to havebeen forgotten. Indeed, rather than being portrayed as the villain for ceasing contributions,the RF’s record of support should allow it to beseen more properly as the IPR’s long-time lifeline.The real tragedy is that, amidst the changingwinds of American politics, no alternative source

Sensing a rare and potentially invaluable oppor-tunity, I invited William (Bill) L. Holland, theInstitute’s last secretary general, to join me at theRAC. Upon the dissolution of the IPR at the endof 1960, Holland became head of the AsianStudies department at the University of BritishColumbia. He and other researchers of the IPRstory have tended to characterize the RF as theproverbial villain, giving in to the surroundinghysteria cum political pressures prompted byMcCarthyism and the McCarran commission, aU.S. Senate judiciary subcommittee on internalsecurity which examined the IPR in detail in1951-1952. Often the key offender in their ver-sion of the story is Dean Rusk, an RF trusteefrom 1950-1952 while also serving as U.S. deputyundersecretary of state, and, more importantly,the RF president from 1952-1960, under whomthe RF grants to IPR ceased.

Holland had come to understand that a positivereference from Rusk suggesting that the IPR’sactivities were in the American national interestwas the major factor in securing the RF trustees’approval to continue funding the IPR beyond1950. Holland surmised that these assessmentswere later used against Rusk by RF trusteeswhen the allegations of communist sympathieswithin the IPR became public and brought intoquestion the propriety of RF support. Havingplayed a central role in getting the RF into thisposition, Rusk was likely told that he now had toextricate it. Resisting pleas for further supportfor the PC and AIPR would have been the mosteffective way for Rusk as RF president to avoidfurther controversy.

The correspondence we viewed confirms thereports that only one RF trustee, Robert A.Lovett, a former U.S. undersecretary of state,raised questions about the propriety of RF fund-ing for the IPR in 1950, after Senator JosephMcCarthy began to accuse the IPR officials ofaiding or participating in the communist conspira-cy. Yet it also shows that Rusk was the mostprominent supporter and defender of the IPR asthe 1950s began. His opinion was likely based inpart upon the assessments of RF officers, who

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of funding could be found in the U.S. or else-where to fill the gap created by the RF’s decisionto step aside, thereby leaving the IPR’s precari-ous financial status fully exposed and ultimatelybeyond recovery.

About the Contributors

William J. Buxton is Professor of CommunicationStudies at Concordia University. He has recently com-pleted (with Charles R. Acland) American Philanthropyand Canadian Libraries: The Cultural Politics ofKnowledge and Information. It will be published(accompanied by Charles F. McComb’s “Report onCanadian Libraries,” submitted to the RockefellerFoundation in 1941) by the Graduate School ofInformation and Library Studies at McGill University.His current research interests include the history ofcommunications studies and the development of thesocial sciences at Harvard. Inquiries can be addressedto him at the Department of Communication Studies,Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, H4B1R6 or through e-mail: [email protected].

Andrés Horacio Reggiani is a doctoral candidate inModern European History at SUNY Stony Brook. Heis a researcher in the Program of Modern EuropeanStudies at the National University of Buenos Aires andteaches at the Torcuato De Tella and Palermo univer-sities (Buenos Aires). His dissertation, “State Policyand Public Health in France, 1920-1950,” investigatesthe nature and significance of modern policies ofhealth reform and demographic planning within thecontext of welfare state-building in France. It seeks tointegrate long-term social analyses within a debatethat assesses the impact of two world wars and therole of medical and demographic experts as producersof relevant social knowledge. He has published“Procreating France: The Politics of Demography,1919-1945,” French Historical Studies 19:3 (Spring1996), and is co-editor of the humanities and social science journal, Sociedad y Cultura. Address inquiriesto him at 3 de Febrero 1841-1ro. F, (1428) CapitalFederal, e-mail: [email protected].

Sabine Tischer holds a Ph.D. in art history from theUniversity of Tübingen, Germany. She is currentlywriting a monograph focusing on the reception ofEuropean medieval art and architecture in the UnitedStates in the early part of the twentieth century. Thebook examines The Cloisters of New York as para-digm for the perception of medieval art and architec-ture, and its function during the economic and socialupheavals between the two World Wars. Please sendinquiries to Sprollstrasse 47, 70597 Stuttgart,Germany. Fax: 011-711-724-624.

Elena Vorobiova, a Ph.D. candidate in history atAuburn University, is currently writing her disserta-tion, “The Republican Party in the South in the 1968Presidential Election.” Her research examinesattempts by Republicans to develop a successful strate-gy in the South to switch Southern voters to the GOPin the 1960s. The 1968 presidential election was one of the fundamental steps in achieving this goal. Shepresented a paper on her work at the InternationalHistorical Conference in Moscow, Russia, in the winterof 1994. She can be contacted at the HistoryDepartment, 310 Thach Hall, Auburn University,Auburn, Alabama 36849-5207.

Vicki Weinberg, a graduate student in history at theUniversity of Arizona, has travelled to Chile severaltimes for research on her dissertation, “IntricateDetails of Intimate Matters: Public Health, Women,National and International Politics in Chile, 1910-1989.” She will present her work at the prestigiousBerkshire Conference on women’s history.

Lawrence T. Woods, is Associate Professor ofInternational Studies at the University of NorthernBritish Columbia. The author of Asia-PacificDiplomacy: Nongovernmental Organizations andInternational Relations (UBC Press, 1993), he is amember of an international research network of scholars exploring aspects of the Institute of PacificRelations and its various national councils. Inquiriesabout his work and the IPR research network may be addressed to him at the International StudiesProgramme, University of Northern British Columbia,3333 University Way, Prince George, BC, Canada, V2N 4Z9 or via e-mail at [email protected].

Research Reports 19


Rockefeller Archive Center15 Dayton AvenuePocantico HillsNorth Tarrytown, NY 10591-1598Telephone: (914) 631-4505

Research Reports from the RockefellerArchive Center is an annual publication ofthe Rockefeller Archive Center, a division of The Rockefeller University. Edited by Erwin Levold and Ken Rose, ResearchReports is intended to foster the network ofscholarship in the history of philanthropy

and to highlight the diverse range of materials and sub-jects covered in the collections at the Rockefeller ArchiveCenter. Published reports are drawn from essays submit-ted by researchers who have visited the Archive Center,many of whom have received Archive Center grants tosupport their research.

Ideas and opinions expressed in the reports are those of the authors and are not intended to represent theRockefeller Archive Center or The Rockefeller University.

¥This publication is printed on acid-free paper¥

Design: Mitelman & Associates Ltd., Tarrytown, NY

20 Spring 1996

A researcher at the Central Agricultural Experiment Station in Debre Zeit, Ethiopia examines sunflowers, “a recent introduction whichshows promise for Ethiopia,” according to the caption in the Rockefeller Foundation report. To promote scholarship in its collections related to Africa, the Archive Center will make a number of special grants in 1997 to researchers studying Africa. For details of this program, see page 8.

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