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.
Figure 1: Portrait of Dorothy Blumenstock Jones in her 1950 application 1950 for a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship.

Source: Rockefeller Foundation records, Series 10.1, box 12, folder 398
© Courtesy of Rockefeller Archive Center.
Dorothy Blumenstock Jones was born in Saint Louis, Missouri, on March 29, 1911. She grew up in a conservative family that did not support her aspirations to pursue higher education. For her parents, the belief was that women should forgo advanced studies. Nevertheless, in 1930, Jones enrolled at the University of Chicago to study Political Science, a fact that marked the beginning of her interest in communication research.
At this time, Harold Lasswell was also teaching at the University of Chicago, having earned his PhD in Political Science in 1926. Lasswell’s thesis is largely regarded as the first doctoral research on propaganda, quickly establishing him as a leading expert in the United States. Among his students was Dorothy, who, during her undergraduate years, became part of a group that closely followed Lasswell as a mentor, together with including notable members such as Bruce Lannes Smith and Gabriel Almond.
During this period, Lasswell focused primarily on the study of “communist propaganda”. Dorothy began contributing to his research, which led to her appointment as his research assistant after she earned her bachelor’s degree in 1934. From that year until 1935, she collaborated with Lasswell on several analyses as an assistant researcher. Their scientific collaboration outlasted this moment, and resulted in two papers published in subsequent years: “The volume of communist propaganda in Chicago” (1939) and “The Technique of Slogans in Communist Propaganda” (1938)1. This collaboration culminated in the book World revolutionary propaganda: A Chicago study, published in 1939, which he co-authored with Jones (figure 2).
Figure 2: Book jacket forHarold D. Lasswell & Dorothy World revolutionary propaganda: A Chicago Study. New York, Knopf, 1939.

Source: Internet Archive.
It is noteworthy that although Jones worked alongside various male authors on other publications, her significant contributions were often overlooked. A notable example is Leo Rostens’s research Hollywood: Movie colony, the movie makers (1941), where she is acknowledged merely as a secretary, despite having conducted analyses and produced reports.
Rosten’s project significantly deepened Jones’s interest in films and their role as propaganda tools. This burgeoning interest set her apart as a unique researcher among her peers, and her collaboration with Rosten was the occasion when she first benefited from funding by the Rockefeller Foundation. In 1941, Jones embarked on her own research focused on motion pictures, intending to develop instruments to scientifically measure film content. She secured a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation for this undertaking, and the findings from this research were published in January 1942 in Public Opinion Quarterly, titled “Quantitative analysis of motion picture content.”
However, it was World revolutionary propaganda: A Chicago study that established Jones as a recognized authority on propaganda, although this acknowledgment was not universally accepted or even visible nowadays. As a woman from the lower middle class, Jones occasionally had to lean on the reputation of her supervisor, Lasswell, to demonstrate her credibility as a serious researcher at the outset of her career. Additionally, as a mother of three and the wife of an independent salesman, she often managed domestic responsibilities while frequently relocating from one city to another. Notwithstanding, Jones was a remarkable and unflagging researcher, working even at the end of a pregnancy and finding notable results in her investigations. She was a presence in the nascent field of communication studies, which began to coalesce during the 1930s and gained traction with the Second world war.
During the 1930s, war increasingly became a significant concern for the United States. Furthermore, U.S. politics was heavily shaped by the interests of major philanthropic organizations. Philanthropy, in this context, was now a tried instrument, referred to as the “‘robber barons’s soft gloves'”: one of its dimensions was to to cultivate a positive public image for these organizations, following the Standard Oil Trust case, the Ludlow Massacre and other situations that had hurt the family’s reputation. During this period, communication and propaganda emerged as critical issues, with philanthropic foundations playing a pivotal role.
Foundations not only provided funding for research but also influenced its direction, bringing together leading experts in the field. In 1939, the Rockefeller Foundation organized the Rockefeller Foundation Communication Seminar, which took place from September to June of the following year. This seminar outlined the directions and areas where the Foundation’s resources would be directed in the emerging field of communication. The Humanities Division’s efforts represented a significant collective initiative aimed at establishing a theoretical and methodological framework for understanding mass communication in the United States. Furthermore, they laid the foundation for research both during that era and in the years that followed, particularly contributing to the development of communication theory.
Although the seminar itself was conducted by John Marshall, the assistant and associate director of the Humanities Division of the Foundation, one of the most significant projects to arise from the meeting was Laswell’s initiative of a large Study of Wartime Communications (1940, and from 1941 Experimental Division for the Study of Wartime Communications). The concepts of communication theory took shape through their various activities, which Laswell described in one of his affidavits:
“Since about 1939 I had participated in an informal group which met under the auspices of the Rockefeller Foundation to consider the existing status of research in the field of mass communication and public opinion studies. Out of this discussion there grew an idea for research on war communication, and I was invited by the Foundation to submit a project. I did so, and received a two-year grant, later extended to engage in a program on three fronts:
1) to develop the methods of “content analysis” in communication research ;
2) to train personnel for the agencies of the government that could be expected to become more actively involved in propaganda and intelligence activities;
3) to hold myself available, in Washington, so that I could set as a sort of raving consultant to public officials developing the governments various propaganda and intelligence progress”.2
One of the offices established within the Division was the Office of War Information, where Leo Rosten served as deputy director (figure 3). Jones was appointed to lead the Motion Picture Analysis Division of the Office of War Information, known as the Bureau of Motion Pictures in Hollywood.
Figure 3: Office of War Information emblem, 1942-1945

Source: Wikimedia Commons
The Office of War Information recognized movies as a powerful medium for influencing the American public through propaganda, particularly given that approximately 8 million tickets to movie theaters were sold each week. As a result, part of the Bureau of Motion Pictures focused on producing comprehensive materials aimed at providing guidance to the Hollywood industry on filmmaking practices. The Office of War Information released numerous guidelines to ensure that films conformed to specific standards. The motion picture industry adhered to these regulations, resulting in films that effectively blended information, patriotism, heroism, and propaganda3. It is important to note that censorship was also a significant consideration in this process.
Jones also worked at the Overseas Branch of the Office of War Information, officially referred to as the Los Angeles Overseas Bureau Motion Picture Division. In this role, she contributed to reducing prejudice against foreigners and immigrants while advocating for more equitable representations of these groups, as evidenced by the Manual for the Motion Picture Industry produced by the Hollywood Office. 4 Throughout her tenure at the Office of War Information, Jones enhanced her understanding of films and their cultural impact, which led her to develop more precise methodological approaches to film study. From the 1930s to the 1960s, she engaged in research, writing, and publication concerning movies, consistently striving to establish a scientific framework for analyzing the products of the film industry.
The period during her work at the Office of War Information represented a stable chapter in her life as an independent researcher, supported by funding from the government and the Rockefeller Foundation (RF). After the closure of the Experimental Division for the Study of Wartime Communications in 1944, Jones took positions at Warner Brothers and other smaller institutions, yet she never attained a university position or a master’s degree.
In 1950, she applied and was appointed to a fellowship by the RF, for a year, and her grant was extended for another year — her request for another extra year was declined (figure 4).
Figure 4: Dorothy Blumenstock Jones‘ application form for Rockefeller Foundation fellowship It mentions her husband’s income.

Source: Rockefeller Foundation records, Series 10.1, box 12, folder 398
© Courtesy of Rockefeller Archive Center.
Her fellowship was tagged as a “special” fellowship, which usually applied to situations where recipients were given a lot of rope, not being constrained by a specific course of study or program of research. She continued to publish articles until 1957, but ceased both her research and publishing after that time, likely due to a lack of funding opportunities (her fellowship recorder card mentions a 1959 application to a Ford Foundation grant which does not seem to have been successful) .
As a woman with limited financial resources, only a bachelor’s degree, and a large family, she found it difficult to pursue her ambitions of becoming a dedicated researcher. The last mentions carried by her fellowship recorder card highlights some of the concluding stages of her career in film studies, as she worked as a film and television consultant in the 1960s (figure 5 ). It also demonstrates that the RF played a crucial role in providing her with some financial security as a researcher without any formal affiliation with American universities.
Figure 5: Dorothy Blumenstock Jones’ fellowship recorder card

Source: Fellowship recorder card for Dorothy Blumenstock Jones . Rockefeller Foundation records, R.G.10.2.
© Courtesy of Rockefeller Archive Center.
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This research note is based on my published research about Dorothy Blumenstock Jones:
-Rafiza Varão, “A first glance at the work of Dorothy Blumenstock Jones. Revista Mediterránea de Comunicación, 12(2), 2021, pp.17-34.
-Rafiza Varão, “Dorothy Blumenstock Jones”, in Elena D. Hristova et al. (eds.), The Ghost Reader. Recovering Women’s Contributions to Media Studies, London, Goldsmiths Press, 2024, pp. 121–132.
- Harold D. Lasswell and Dorothy Blumenstock, “The technique of slogans in communist propaganda” Psychiatry, 1:4 (1938), p.505-520 ↩︎
- Harold D. Lasswell, “Affidavit”, Unpublished manuscript 1941, Harold Lasswell’s papers, Yale Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University. ↩︎
- Laura Clarkson Lefler, “A war of words: America’s domestic and foreign propaganda efforts in World War II”, University of Tennessee Knoxville, Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects, 2001. ↩︎
- John Roston, The influence of the office of war information on the portrayal of Japanese Americans in the U.S. films of World War II, 1942-1945, Master Thesis, McGill University, 1983, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262068837_The_Influence_of_the_Office_of_War_Information_on_the_Portrayal_of_Japanese-Americans_in_the_US_Films_of_World_War_II_1942-1945 . ↩︎
OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
rvarao (March 17, 2025). Who knows Dorothy Blumenstock Jones? Film and communication studies in America. Rockefeller fellows. Retrieved April 26, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/13hnz