Rockefeller Archive Center

Rockefeller Archive Center Research Reports are created by recipients of research travel stipends and by many others who have conducted research at the RAC. The reports demonstrate the breadth of the RAC's archival holdings, particularly in the study of philanthropy and its effects. Read more about the history of philanthropy at resource.rockarch.org. Also, see the RAC Bibliography of Scholarship, a comprehensive online database of publications citing RAC archival collections.

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Exploring Twentieth-Century Politics of Health and Rights through the Biographical Lens: The Life of Chilean Medical Doctor Benjamin Viel Vicuña

January 1, 2013

In much of the western world, the trajectory of health as a right was linked to fundamental negotiations over the "social contract" between state leaders and civil society. In Latin America, most decisive debates over states' responsibilities for public health, and health as a citizenship right, took shape in the twentieth century. Governments began to recognize their role in designing and administering health programs and negotiated their responsibilities and duties. Since the first decades of the past century, the development of health systems at the nation-state level was also influenced by powerful international agencies that mediated new "social contracts" in modernizing nations. Historians have portrayed philanthropic "missionaries of science," like the Rockefeller Foundation (RF), for example, that contributed to the suppression of health threats such as yellow fever and malaria.

Global Man Meets Local Women: Examining Public Health, Fertility Regulation, and Gender Equity in Chile

January 1, 2008

In the 1960s, a new educational film, Family Planning/Planificación Familiar, made its debut in Chile and throughout Latin America. The animated movie, produced by Walt Disney in English and Spanish, introduced its viewers to a cartoon husband, claiming to represent the "Common Man," and to Donald Duck, the narrator, who led the audience from one theme to the next. After describing the dangers of overpopulation and underdevelopment, the Duck concluded that family planning, which would lead to smaller families and to population decline, was the only way to ward off poverty. When "Common Man's" cartoon wife popped up intermittently, she had doubts, though she was too shy and embarrassed to speak. The wife only managed to voice her doubts about family planning by whispering into her husband's ear while he articulated her questions to the audience. The narrative concluded with an interpretation meant to assure the concerned woman that family planning was not only socially acceptable, but was indeed indispensable to the healthy future of a woman's family, her community, and humankind as a whole.

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