Between 1924 and 1936, August Wilhelm Fehling is the main contact for Rockefeller philanthropy in the social sciences in Germany. His position is somewhat different from that of the Foundation’s other “national representatives”. With a lesser scientific reputation than his prestigious counterparts such as Luigi Einaudi for Italy1 or Charles Rist for France2, Fehling also has a more restricted role, consisting of preparing the decisions of a committee of German university professors concerning the preselection of fellows. Nevertheless, Fehling develops his own scope for action within European and transatlantic networks. This is evidenced by his extensive correspondence in German and English, which can be consulted at the Rockefeller Archive Center and the German Federal Archives in Koblenz3. These files help to explain why Fehling is able to remain “representative” of the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial and then “Fellowship Advisor in the Social Sciences for Germany” of the Rockefeller Foundation until 1936, at a time when the European Fellowship Program has changed and the Nazi regime has fundamentally altered the conditions for research in Germany.
(more…)August Wilhelm Fehling, “fellow maker” dans l’Allemagne de l’entre-deux-guerres
Entre 1924 et 1936, August Wilhelm Fehling est pour l’Allemagne le principal interlocuteur de la philanthropie rockefellerienne dans le domaine des sciences sociales. Sa position est un peu différente de celle des autres « représentants nationaux » de la Fondation. D’une notoriété scientifique bien moindre que ses prestigieux homologues comme Luigi Einaudi pour l’Italie1 ou Charles Rist pour la France2, il a aussi un rôle plus restreint, consistant à préparer les décisions d’un comité d’universitaires allemands en matière de présélection des boursiers. Toutefois, Fehling développe une marge d’action propre au cœur de réseaux européens et transatlantiques, dont témoigne une vaste correspondance rédigée en allemand et en anglais3. Celle-ci est aujourd’hui consultable au Rockefeller Archive Center et aux Archives fédérales allemandes de Coblence. Ces dossiers aident à comprendre pourquoi Fehling a pu rester « Representative » du Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial puis « Fellowship Advisor in the Social Sciences for Germany » de la Fondation Rockefeller jusqu’en 1936, dans un contexte où le dispositif des bourses Rockefeller avait changé et où le régime nazi avait profondément modifié les conditions de la recherche en Allemagne.
(more…)Who knows Dorothy Blumenstock Jones? Film and communication studies in America.
Compared to other pioneering researchers in communication studies, Dorothy Blumenstock Jones is somewhat unknown. Despite her strong connections to many prominent academics in the field, historians and textbooks frequently overlook or diminish her contributions. Nonetheless, Jones had a prolific career and played a significant role in shaping methodological approaches to film studies — almost all of which were sponsored by funds from the Rockefeller Foundation, including a fellowship.
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A fellow and his mushrooms: medical mycology at the Oswaldo Cruz Institute
In January 2023, the Brazilian newspaper O Globo published an article celebrating the centenary of the current Filamentous Fungi Culture Collection of the Oswaldo Cruz Institute/Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, which reached 100 years at the end of 2022. According to the newspaper, the collection originated from more than 800 specimens of organisms brought by Olympio da Fonseca, a physician and scientist sent to the United States to study mycology by Carlos Chagas, then director of the Institute. The article did not mention that Olympio da Fonseca’s stay was funded by a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship.
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Hans Keller, the “parlor Nazi” and founder of the Nationalist International
On initial consideration, the German jurist Hans Keller (1908-1970, see figure 1) appears to be an unlikely holder of a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship. During the interwar period, the Rockefeller Foundation (RF) provided financial assistance and expertise to the League of Nations and affiliated organizations, such as the Graduate Institute of International Studies, with the objective of preserving the United States’ presence in Europe and, more broadly, advancing liberal internationalism. Keller, in stark contrast, was a proud German nationalist and self-proclaimed “anti-internationalist”, who based his legal theories on racism and völkisch ideology. He became one of the “most tireless agents of Nazi internationalism in the interwar period”1. As a scholar of international law, Keller sought to establish a novel legal system, designated as the “law of nations” (Recht der Völker), which provided a framework for German revisionism to the post-1919 liberal order established by the Treaty of Versailles2.
(more…)The Rockefeller System on Trial: Luigi Einaudi and the Selection of Italian Scholars for the Social Sciences (1926-1931)
In line with the expectations of Wilsonian universalism, after the First World War, the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial under the management of Beardsley Ruml not only oriented the field of social sciences towards a clearer disciplinary and methodological definition, but also allocated substantial funds from 1924 onwards to grant fellowships to a number of young American and European scholars. They thus found themselves assuming a crucial function in the construction and redistribution of knowledge on the international chessboard.
Europe, in particular, was perceived as a fertile terrain in which to develop a model of social sciences that, by lowering the threshold of formalisation, promoted empirical research, quantitative data analysis and fieldwork, to which was added the desire to modernise an academic system obsolete due to the weight of the 19th century tradition and the inability to form elites ready to confront large-scale collaborative practices. In turn, Memorial grants, from the perspective of crossfertilisation, could serve to identify the European scholars most functional to the process of producing the new version of the social sciences being developed in the US. This explains why graduates funded to conduct a two-year research project in universities on both the Old and New Continent were under a strict obligation to return home at the end of their stay1.
(more…)Il sistema Rockefeller alla prova: Luigi Einaudi e la selezione dei borsisti italiani per le Scienze sociali (1926-1931)
In linea con le aspettative dell’universalismo wilsoniano, dopo la Prima guerra mondiale il Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial sotto la gestione di Beardsley Ruml non solo orientava il settore delle scienze sociali verso una definizione disciplinare e metodologica più chiara, ma stanziava dal 1924 cospicui fondi per garantire borse di studio a un certo numero di giovani studiosi americani ed europei, che si trovarono così ad assumere una funzione cruciale nella costruzione e redistribuzione del sapere sullo scacchiere internazionale.
(more…)5×7 inches: Biography of a Source, Source for Prosopography. The Permanent Recorder Cards of Rockefeller-Endowed Organizations 1914-1970. Episode 5 (and last).
Episode 5: Using the Cards
When the Rockefeller Archive Center processed its collection of permanent recorder cards in the early 2000s, staff noted many signs of wear: tears, gnawed edges and corners, pencil marks, etc. Far from being pristine or untouched, the card indexes had seen active and daily use by employees of Rockefeller-endowed organizations.
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Medical Nationalism in the Dutch East Indies and Indonesia: Mas Sardjito and his work
The Rockefeller Foundation and its associated philanthropies have occupied a dominant position in the historiography of Southeast Asian medical history1. Sustained efforts at archival curation have made the Rockefeller Foundation an indispensable point of departure for scholars specializing in the History of Science and Technology Studies. The online search engine of the Rockefeller Archive Center, DIMES (https://dimes.rockarch.org/), lists three recipients from the Netherlands Indies. The Rockefeller Foundation sponsored Mohammad Djamil and Mas Sardjito to undertake further medical training at Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, USA) during the 1920s. At the same time, Soemedi was offered a fellowship to study Public Health at the University of the Philippines (Manila), during the 1930s. Out of these three, Mas Sardjito cuts the most important figure.
(more…)- Anderson, Warwick, “American Public Health and Colonial Mimicry,” American Literary History 14:4, 2002, p. 686-719; Stein, Eric, “Colonial Theaters of Proof: Representation and Laughter in 1930s Rockefeller Foundation Hygiene Cinema in Java”, Health and History 8:2, . 2006, p.14-44. [↩]
5×7 inches: Biography of a Source, Source for Prosopography. The Permanent Recorder Cards of Rockefeller-Endowed Organizations 1914-1970. Episode 4.
Episode 4: What information did permanent recorder cards contain?
Even the most cursory comparison of permanent recorder cards produced by different Rockefeller-endowed organizations reveals that the types of information added to these documents could differ significantly. To a large extent, record-keeping practices varied according to how each organization perceived the awards it granted. These different perspectives were reflected in the very layout of the cards.
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