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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Intervention Programs of Public Health: Rockefeller Fellowship, Dr. Adetokunbo Lucas, and the Development of Public Health in Nigeria, 1963-1986

November 20, 2023

This paper looks at conversations around global exchanges through fellowship programs for public health development by the Rockefeller Foundation (RF), focusing particularly on Dr. Adetokunbo Lucas. Studies about the history of transnational scholarships designed by RF have often centred on Western/Asian recipients with little or no significant discourses on fellows of African descent. By focusing on Dr. Lucas and the University of Ibadan, this paper examines how campus-based politics, fuelled and shaped by larger Cold War politics, interfered with the implementation process of the global public health agenda of the RF in Nigeria.

Academic Research and Education; Cold War; Medicine and Healthcare; Rockefeller Foundation

University Development of American Foundations in British Africa

September 10, 2020

This paper discusses Rockefeller and Ford Foundations' participation in the development of new universities in former British Africa in the post-war era. By utilising sources from the Rockefeller Archive Center, it suggests that while American foundations' engagement with African universities has been merely described as "generous" in the context of British imperial histories, the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations had also projected their own philanthropical and diplomatic agendas for African universities. This report focuses specifically on initiatives of the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations and their perspectives on British-style development of African universities in Ghana and Nigeria. I argue that vigorous engagements of American foundations had an energising effect on the growth of African universities. Through analysis of the ways in which American foundations participated in and dominated the development of African universities, this report shows a more balanced picture of both Anglo-American cooperation and competition for new universities from the 1950s to 1970s. This research comes out of my doctoral research on British strategies for new universities at the end of the British Empire, focusing on the activities of the InterUniversity Council for Higher Education in the Colonies (later renamed the InterUniversity Council for Higher Education Overseas).

Academic Research and Education; Education; Ford Foundation; Rockefeller Foundation

From Population Control to Reproductive Health Campaigns? Family Planning in Nigeria

September 27, 2017

Early in September 2015, I was discussing my research with a Ph.D. candidate that I had met for the first time at the University of Texas, Austin. I told him that I had conducted preliminary research at the British National Archives and Cadbury Research Library in Birmingham, England during the previous summer. These archives had colonial and missionary documents, respectively, and I expressed a desire to explore documents on healthcare in Nigeria by groups other than the government or the church. My colleague told me about the Rockefeller Archive Center's (RAC) collection and encouraged me to contact an archivist about documents on Nigeria. Of course, I was skeptical. "What can an archive in New York have on early Nigerian history?", I mused. Seeing my reluctance, he reiterated that there was no limit to the collection's reach and gave me a link to the website. I contacted an archivist who encouraged me to search the Center's database. I was surprised and delighted to find tons of files on medicine and reproductive health in Nigeria.

Ford Foundation; Population Council; Population and Reproductive Sciences

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