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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. For more information about the Rockefeller Archive Center visit www.rockarch.org.

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128 results found

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The Music and Performing Arts Programs of the Rockefeller Foundation

The Music and Performing Arts Programs of the Rockefeller Foundation

Mar 08, 2021

Rockefeller Archive Center;

The Rockefeller Foundation had originally left out much grantmaking to the arts during the first decades of its operations, instead devoting greater resources to efforts such as the alleviation of global hunger, the expansion of access to public libraries, or the eradication of hookworm. Its support of music prior to the 1950s had totaled less than $200,000 over four decades. After the Second World War, however, it began giving substantial funds to the arts and humanities. The Rockefeller Foundation funded projects in new music, like commissions made by the Louisville Orchestra, operas and ballets at New York's City Center, and the work of the "creative associates" at the State University of New York at Buffalo. In total, between 1953 and 1976, the Rockefeller Foundation granted more than $40 million ($300 million in 2017) to the field of music alone. 

The Midwest Program on Airborne Television Instruction and the Ford Foundation

The Midwest Program on Airborne Television Instruction and the Ford Foundation

Nov 06, 2020

Rockefeller Archive Center;

The Midwest Program on Airborne Television Instruction (MPATI) was a major investment by the Ford Foundation and other philanthropies in the 1950s and 1960s.  Project administrators used broadcast antennae on airplanes to provide educational programs to schools across a six-state region, with the goal of closing the gap between wealthy, higher-performing schools in the region, and poorer school systems in cities and rural areas.  Furthermore, MPATI was envisioned as a potential model for other disadvantaged regions, such as Appalachia, as well as for other nations.  This report draws primarily from correspondence between Ford Foundation officials and MPATI administrators.

Observations on John D. Rockefeller, Jr.’s and the Rockefeller Foundation’s Involvement with Colorado’s Work-Relief Program

Observations on John D. Rockefeller, Jr.’s and the Rockefeller Foundation’s Involvement with Colorado’s Work-Relief Program

Oct 21, 2020

Rockefeller Archive Center;

With the formal conclusion of the coal miners' strike at the Colorado Fuel and Iron pits in December 1914 and the suspension of the United Mine Workers' strike benefits in February 1915, former strikers and their families were once again solely dependent on wage labor. Yet demand for coal had plummeted due to mild winter weather and a deep economic recession. The lack of work quickly left many families destitute. In response to this dire situation, local officials turned to John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (JDR, Jr.) and the Rockefeller Foundation (RF) to create a work-relief program for unemployed miners in the form of local road-building projects. The RF supplied $100,000 for the work-relief program that employed 4,250 men. (They were paid in vouchers that could only be used for clothes or food.) The program lasted from April through June 1915 in seven Colorado counties. W.L. Mackenzie King represented the Rockefeller Foundation in negotiations with Colorado officials to hammer out an agreement to access RF funds. During these talks, King not only made sure to protect RF funds from misuse, fraud, and waste by incorporating multiple oversights into the final agreement, but he also had to convince JDR, Jr. that the relief effort was a worthy endeavor. King clearly oversold aspects of Colorado's work-relief program. He exaggerated the degree of private/public partnership as neither sector contributed meaningful dollars to the endeavor. In the end, the entire work-relief project rested solely on the Rockefeller Foundation's funding.

Nurses in the History of Psychiatry: The Role of the Rockefeller Foundation

Nurses in the History of Psychiatry: The Role of the Rockefeller Foundation

Oct 14, 2020

Rockefeller Archive Center;

I made multiple trips to the Rockefeller Archive Center throughout 2014 and 2015 for research on the history of psychiatry, especially in relation to nursing. I found extensive records on the Rockefeller Foundation's activities in this area. Its Medical Sciences Division had a major interest in the ways that psychiatry and psychiatric education could be used to solve social problems during and after WWII and into the Cold War period

The SSRC’s Committee on Economic Stability and the Consolidation of Large-Scale Macroeconometric Modeling in Postwar United States

The SSRC’s Committee on Economic Stability and the Consolidation of Large-Scale Macroeconometric Modeling in Postwar United States

Oct 07, 2020

Rockefeller Archive Center;

This report presents ongoing research on the history of the Committee on Economic Stability of the Social Science Research Council (1959-1995), which played a major role in the consolidation of large-scale macroeconometric modeling in postwar United States, both inside and outside academia. A key characteristic of the Committee's projects was their scale, which largely surpassed previous model-building work. This feature provides interesting insights into the relevance of the Committee's work in shaping macroeconomics in the postwar period. The Committee's records offer a most valuable source for reevaluating the history of macroeconomics, since much of applied economics and economics outside of academia has been neglected in the historiography of economics.

Health-Related Prison Conditions in the Progressive and Civil Rights Eras: Lessons from the Rockefeller Archive Center

Health-Related Prison Conditions in the Progressive and Civil Rights Eras: Lessons from the Rockefeller Archive Center

Sep 23, 2020

Rockefeller Archive Center;

During my 2019 visit to the Rockefeller Archive Center (RAC), I viewed papers from more than a dozen collections, which provided perspective on how health, incarceration, politics, and policy intermingled in the twentieth century. In this report, I offer an overview of my book project, Minimal Standards of Adequacy: A History of Health Care in Modern U.S. Prisons, and analyze how portions of it will be informed by two sets of documents from the RAC. I focus first on records contained in the Bureau of Social Hygiene records, which shed light on the perspectives of Progressive Era penologists who helped to shape ideals and practices related to prison health in specific institutions, as well as in state and federal correctional systems. Next, I discuss findings from the papers of Winthrop Rockefeller, who served as governor of Arkansas from 1966 to 1970, when federal courts deemed conditions within the state's prison system unconstitutional. While I continue to undertake research for the book, this report serves as a snapshot of my current reading of select sources from two different moments in the history of US prisons. It suggests the extent to which, throughout the twentieth century, carceral institutions posed tremendous health threats to the increasing numbers of people inside them, even as radical advocates urged drastic change, and as reformers, corrections professionals, and political representatives called for more rules, regulations, and bureaucracy.

Lost in Translation?  US Foundations as Mediators between US Interests and the International Climate Policy Space

Lost in Translation? US Foundations as Mediators between US Interests and the International Climate Policy Space

Sep 02, 2020

Rockefeller Archive Center;

Given their historic ties with US foreign policy circles, their longstanding commitment to the amicable resolution of national differences, and their active role in forging an international climate regime and attendant "civil society," US foundations were ideally positioned to mediate between US domestic and foreign policy interests, and the international climate policy space. The study of their involvement in the international climate debate provides important insights into how US domestic politics feeds into the international climate policy process and, more specifically, how the alignment of international negotiations on the US position helped deliver the Paris outcome. Drawing on archival material from the Rockefeller Archive Center, this report looks at how philanthropic foundations' early involvement in the international climate debate was affected by domestic issues in the United States.

Neither Right nor Left: Grassroots Black Conservatism in Post-World War II America

Neither Right nor Left: Grassroots Black Conservatism in Post-World War II America

Aug 25, 2020

Rockefeller Archive Center;

Over the past two decades, the growth of scholarship on the history of modern conservatism and the rise of the New Right has moved this ideology from the margins of American society to mainstream political thought. Much of this work has foregrounded the lives, organizations, and political activity of white conservatives in the U.S. But scholars have begun to pay more serious attention to African Americans and their leadership in the Republican Party during the postwar era. Notwithstanding the significance of this emerging literature, it places a strong national and state focus on the instrumental role of black Republicans who waged an uphill battle to secure the GOP's commitment to civil rights and racial equality. My project adopts a more bottom-up approach to understanding the development of modern black conservatism and its impact on the African American struggle for racial equality, focusing on its evolution in local communities from 1950 to 1985. I contend that even though the important role of black Republicans and conservatives at the national level during this period has begun to receive more attention, the lesser well-known individuals and groups, especially black women, who helped to shape conservative ideas about crime, education, and economic advancement, require further study. In addition, there is a dearth of local studies that examine how ordinary men and women critically influenced conservative ideas about racial uprisings, Black Power, busing, welfare, police brutality, the War on Poverty, gay rights and feminism. I argue that while some African Americans ostensibly appropriated conservative ideas about family, morality, and individualism, others refashioned these ideas to address their racialized experiences.

Building Administrative Capacity in the National Government: The Role of Rockefeller-Funded Initiatives, 1910–1930

Building Administrative Capacity in the National Government: The Role of Rockefeller-Funded Initiatives, 1910–1930

Aug 11, 2020

Rockefeller Archive Center;

During the 1910s and 1920s, corporate elites and their Republican allies emerged as the leading proponents of central power and national authority in debates about the institutional structure of the federal government. This project traces the progress of their agenda and shows how it was foiled by defenders of local control and white supremacy. The primary focus is on policy debates about three general topics: budget reform, executive reorganization, and anti-lynching. On each of these topics, elite reformers sought to build central power and national authority. In each case, they faced opposition from political leaders from the South and West. Rockefeller-funded initiates—and, indeed, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., himself—played a key role in the elite reform efforts of the 1910s and 1920s. The report that follows presents evidence drawn from records held at the Rockefeller Archive Center.

A New Dealized Grand Old Party: Labor, Civil Rights, and the Remaking of American Liberalism, 1935-1973

A New Dealized Grand Old Party: Labor, Civil Rights, and the Remaking of American Liberalism, 1935-1973

Jul 21, 2020

Rockefeller Archive Center;

Drawing on the wealth of material from the Nelson A. Rockefeller papers held at the Rockefeller Archive Center (RAC), my dissertation project examines the rise and fall of the "liberal" wing of the mid-twentieth century Republican Party. Big city Republicans from industrial states faced social movements that made mass democracy a vibrant force. Liberal Republicans emerged among the typically wellto-do men and women of older and established neighborhoods in New York, San Francisco, and Minneapolis. While no less an elite class than other Republican partisans, urban Republicans witnessed the upheavals and political transformation of the city firsthand. Unlike the rural and suburban right, big city Republicans simply could not imagine mounting a frontal assault against the vaunted New Deal coalition. In this setting, the reactionary bent of the party's base actually looked more like an electoral liability. Liberal Republicans insisted that winning statewide (or national) office required votes from major cities home to a diverse and organized working class that otherwise voted for Democrats. But securing any significant segment of that vote required a series of accommodations that most Republicans simply could not tolerate.

Tracing the Divergence of Behavioral and Experimental Economics in the Rockefeller Archive Center's Collections

Tracing the Divergence of Behavioral and Experimental Economics in the Rockefeller Archive Center's Collections

Jun 09, 2020

Rockefeller Archive Center;

"I once asked Amos Tversky whatever happened to the tradition of Sidney Siegel in psychology, and he said, 'You are it.' That was not a compliment. [group laughter] That was a touché. [group laughter] He was putting me down. … 'You are it. You continued a bad tradition.'" (Vernon Smith at the Witness Seminar) This brief, and at first sight innocuous, if not jocular, exchange took place during a short two-day conference. Even if we must rely solely on Smith's memory (Tversky died over two decades ago), this exchange is far from being so insignificant as to be cast aside as merely a cute anecdote. Rather, it is symptomatic of an unease growing at that time between experimental economists, including Smith, on the one hand, and a group of economists and cognitive psychologists – soon to be referred to as behavioral economists – on the other.

Embattled River:  The Hudson and Modern American Environmentalism

Embattled River:  The Hudson and Modern American Environmentalism

Jun 02, 2020

Rockefeller Archive Center;

I spent several days in September 2015 at the Rockefeller Archive Center (RAC) working in the Nelson A. Rockefeller Papers, especially the gubernatorial collection, investigating the Hudson River Valley Commission (HRVC), a largely unstudied state agency that the governor created in 1965. Thanks to considerable effort by archivist Monica Blank after my initial interview at RAC, I also worked in the documents Laurance S. Rockefeller compiled as chair of the (temporary) Hudson River Valley Commission, which are housed at the RAC. Given his longstanding interest in the Hudson River Valley, Laurance S. Rockefeller's papers include a large amount of material from the subsequent years of the "permanent" commission's existence. During the same month of my visit to RAC, I also spent considerable time working in the Hudson River Valley Commission Collection at the New York State Archives, Albany. Between these two collections, I was able to develop a thorough understanding of the commission's goals and operations.

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