Wartime Planning, Postwar Response: Rockefeller Foundation Contributions to Cultural Reconstruction in Post-World War II Europe

Over the course of the 2010-2011 academic year, the generous support of a Rockefeller Archive Center (RAC) Grant-In-Aid allowed me to visit the RAC several times a month to conduct research for my dissertation, "Books across Borders: The Politics of Cultural Reconstruction in Early Postwar, Post-Holocaust, Cold War Europe." Through a comparative analysis of efforts undertaken in France and Poland particularly, as well as to surviving Jewish groups and communities scattered throughout World War II-devastated Europe, my dissertation investigates the centrality of postwar cultural reconstruction to the mission of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). More specifically, I explore how national and international organizations, foundations and institutions collaborated with the newly established UNESCO in order to respond to the pressing needs of Europe's ravaged library and book cultures. The research I conducted at the RAC allowed me to examine the nature and extent of the involvement of the Rockefeller Foundation (RF) Humanities Division in UNESCO and in postwar library and book-related reconstruction and rehabilitation projects.