We are sharing here the latest edition of our “New Research” series. The series provides the public with an opportunity to read the most recently published RAC research reports. These have been prepared by RAC research stipend recipients who have come to our reading room to study the archival materials that we preserve and make available to users from around the world. The reports showcase the wide range of collections that they have used, spanning different time periods and disciplines. This edition’s set of reports reflects researchers’ use of the records from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial, and the Office of the Messrs. Rockefeller collections. Also, previously published RAC research reports are cited.
“Forging a Post-Imperial Rural Subject: Strategies of Rural Regeneration in Post-Habsburg Countries between Local State Building and Transnational Philanthropy” by Vojtěch Pojar
In the aftermath of World War I, the newly independent countries of Central Europe sought to develop, as researcher Vojtěch Pojar defines it, new “strategies for rural regeneration.” These programs were initiated to transform the countryside, shed the Habsburg imperial past, and foster new national agendas. In his research report, “Forging a Post-Imperial Rural Subject: Strategies of Rural Regeneration in Post-Habsburg Countries between Local State Building and Transnational Philanthropy,” Dr. Pojar notes that these efforts in the 1920s and 1930s were often biopolitical in nature, as they combined questions of rural health, education, development, and eugenics, with reliance on expert knowledge. Based on his research in the records of the Rockefeller Foundation (RF), Vojtěch Pojar’s report compares the rural regeneration strategies of four countries: Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary, and Yugoslavia. While the RF was not directly involved with the development of the rural regeneration policy per se, its support for a series of rural health demonstrations in the region bolstered these efforts. His findings suggest that while the national agendas for reshaping the social, economic, and “moral” fabric of rural populations varied significantly in details and results, the presence of the RF, a major transnational philanthropic player in public health, ultimately played a crucial role through its health initiatives.
Vojtěch Pojar received his Ph.D. at Central European University and is currently a postdoctoral fellow at New Europe College in Bucharest. His research interests include comparative history and intellectual history, with a special interest in the history of eugenics within the Habsburg imperial context and its successor states. He was a 2024 RAC research stipend recipient.
“Women and Mexico’s Green Revolution: State, Agronomic, and Popular Gender Imaginaries,” by Gabriel Panuco-Mercado
Gabriel Panuco-Mercado came to RAC to study the impact of the Green Revolution in Mexico. Although many researchers have explored these records in the Rockefeller Foundation (RF) archives in the past, he focused on an aspect of the collection that has not previously been studied. In “Women and Mexico’s Green Revolution: State, Agronomic, and Popular Gender Imaginaries,” he analyzes how perceptions of women were shaped, reimagined, and also erased in activities related to the promotion of RF’s agricultural program to improved corn and sugarcane production. Panuco-Mercado argues that this marginalization of women was part of a larger cultural phenomenon in Mexico, strengthening stereotypes about the role of women in the family and in society at large. Bolstered by his findings in the RF archives, he notes that despite efforts both by the state and RF officials to minimize or marginalize women in the saga of the Green Revolution, Mexican women were active participants in the commercial transformation that took place in the country.
Gabriel Panuco-Mercado is a doctoral candidate in the Department of History at Stanford University. His research interests focus on in the gender, food, and labor history of rural Mexico and its migrant communities. He was a 2024 RAC research stipend recipient.
“The Rockefeller Foundation, the State, and Rural Health in 1930s Colombia” by Hanni Jalil
In her report, Hanni Jalil looks at the ways in which the Rockefeller Foundation’s (RF) initiatives in Colombia during the 1930s were embraced by the ruling Liberal Party for its own reform agenda. “The Rockefeller Foundation, the State, and Rural Health in 1930s Colombia,” makes extensive use of RAC’s collections on this chapter of RF grantmaking in the country that extended back to the 1920s, in addition to Colombian archival sources. The report traces the decision by the government’s Department of National Hygiene during the early 1930s to publish Salud y Sanidad, a newsletter aimed at disseminating public health information to rural populations. Aware of literacy-related barriers for a large percentage of the population, it was distributed to parishes, large estates, factories, and municipal offices. These efforts were later followed by the creation of sanitary units and rural health commissions in these same regions to improve health outcomes. Dr. Jalil points out that during this period, the government emphasized the centrality of state-initiated programming and education as it strengthened the collection of health statistics, fiscal coordination with local and municipal governments, and systematized the allocation of resources. She notes that the Rockefeller Foundation recognized the inherent value of these efforts by the Colombian government to foster rural development that complemented its own work there.
Hanni Jalil is an associate professor history at California State University, Channel Islands. Her research interests focus on health, medicine, and disease in Latin America, with a special interest on the impact of public health and medicine on rural and urban social policy. She was a 2024 RAC research stipend recipient.
“‘To Decide Without Knowing Me’: The Rise of Elton Mayo and Human Resource Management” by Georgina Arnott
In “‘To Decide Without Knowing Me’: The Rise of Elton Mayo and Human Resource Management,” Georgina Arnott takes a fresh look at Mayo’s career. Before coming to RAC, she had studied his correspondence with his wife and daughters, as well as the papers of Mayo’s biographer, Richard Trahair, in various archives in Australia. Her report raises a series of interesting questions about this famous pioneer of human resource management. Mayo had successfully created a network of contacts within the constellation of Rockefeller philanthropies who were eager to hear his ideas about industrial relations and the psychology of the workplace. The Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial, as well as John D. Rockefeller, Jr. personally supported Mayo, ultimately leading to his appointment to Harvard as an expert on industrial relations. They were clearly unaware of his fraudulent credentials; Arnott points out that “Dr. Mayo” had neither a doctorate nor had he completed medical training. She notes that this story of a successful charlatan pioneering a new academic field also raises a broader set of questions. It suggests the need for further research on the origins of human resources management overall, as well as additional studies analyzing the role of US academic social science research on this global phenomenon.
Georgina Arnott came to RAC from Australia as an independent researcher. She had previously been a postdoctoral research associate for history at the University of Melbourne. Dr. Arnott was a 2024 research stipend recipient.
About the RAC Research Stipend Program
The Rockefeller Archive Center offers a competitive research stipend program that provides individuals up to $5,000 for reimbursement of travel and accommodation expenses. Learn more on our Research Stipend page.
