We are sharing the latest edition of our “New Research” series. It provides the public with an opportunity to read the most recently published Rockefeller Archive Center research reports. These reports 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 seen, spanning different time periods and disciplines. This edition’s set of reports reflects researchers’ studies accessing the records from the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Trust for Mutual Understanding, and the Social Science Research Council.
“Ford Foundation Philanthropy in Switzerland and the Promotion of European Integration (1957-1967)” by Carmen Crozier
Carmen Crozier came to RAC in 2024 to pursue research on US philanthropic engagement in Switzerland during the Cold War era. Her research report, “Ford Foundation Philanthropy in Switzerland and the Promotion of European Integration (1957-1967),” highlights one aspect of the Ford Foundation’s (FF) programs for Switzerland: its support for the field of European studies. While the roots of area studies can be traced back to an earlier period, European studies became a major focus of US social sciences during the Cold War, partially in response to the geopolitical shifts of the era. Carmen Crozier’s report provides a window into why the FF provided grants for the creation of the Centre de Recherches Européennes. She argues that the personal relationship between Shepard Stone, Director of Ford’s International Affairs program and Jean Monnet, the “father of modern Europe,” was a decisive factor in this funding. Crozier notes that Ford’s ideological interest at the time — fostering democratic institutions during the Cold War — was also an inherent component of the decision-making process for funding European integration research.
Carmen Crozier is a doctoral candidate in history at the Université de Lausanne. Her research interests include the history of postwar Europeanization. She was a 2024 RAC research stipend recipient.
“Laying the Foundation for Environmental Peacebuilding” by Erika Weinthal
Erika Weinthal’s visit to RAC was an opportunity to conduct research in an archival collection that until now has received little attention: the records of the Trust for Mutual Understanding (TMU). Her report, “Laying the Foundation for Environmental Peacebuilding,” illustrates how a small philanthropy’s grantmaking can have a significant impact despite its relatively limited funds. Dr. Weinthal’s research looks at how discourse on the scientific and technical aspects of environmental issues served as a means to foster peace both during the Cold War and in its aftermath. Discussions by experts on topics such as air pollution, fisheries, or nuclear safety built trust, confidence, and mutual understanding. Similarly, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) involved with environmental issues built important bridges by supporting civil society networks across borders. Starting in 1985, the Trust for Mutual Understanding provided grants to a wide range of US-based environmental NGOs which, in turn, supported various direct exchanges and collaborations with groups in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union and its successor states. At the end of her report, Dr. Weinthal anticipates future research looking at the evolution of the impact of TMU’s NGO-based environmental work in the 1990s as the political climates changed both in Eastern Europe and in the former Soviet Union.
Erika Weinthal is a distinguished professor at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University. She specializes in global environmental politics and environmental security. Dr. Weinthal was a 2023 RAC research stipend recipient.
“The Hanover Conferences and the Emergence of the ‘Personality and Culture’ Perspective“ by L. Bican Polat
In his report, “The Hanover Conferences and the Emergence of the ‘Personality and Culture’ Perspective,“ L. Bican Polat looks at the intellectual origins of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC). He traces its beginnings to dialogues fostered by Rockefeller interest in the benefits of interdisciplinary approaches for the social sciences. His report then focuses on one particular event that encouraged discussions among social scientists, the 1926 Hanover Conference. This conference was one of a series of meetings sponsored by the SSRC at Dartmouth College. Among its many activities was a series of lectures by prominent anthropologists of the time, Bronislaw Malinowski, Clark Wissler, and Edward Sapir. Analyzing transcripts of their talks preserved in the SSRC records at RAC, Dr. Polat observes that all three social scientists came from very different traditions within the field and they had distinct visions of how best to shape their discipline’s evolution in the future. He notes that these talks were also very revealing of the broader methodological debates within anthropology and the social sciences during the early 20th century.
L. Bican Polat is a clinical associate professor of history at NYU Shanghai. He received his joint-degree PhD in Intellectual History and Anthropology from Johns Hopkins University in 2016, specializing in historical and social studies of science and medicine and historical epistemology. Dr. Polat was a 2020 RAC research stipend recipient.
“Marks and Their Erasures: Ford Foundation and the Politics of the Transnational in Contemporary China” by Dušica Ristivojević
While at RAC, Dušica Ristivojević conducted extensive research in the records of the Ford Foundation. Her report, “Marks and Their Erasures: Ford Foundation and the Politics of the Transnational in Contemporary China,” analyzes the Ford Foundation’s presence in China, with its involvement in the 1995 UN Fourth World Conference on Beijing as a focal point. In the Ford records, she explored Ford’s role in supporting Chinese women’s efforts to participate in the conference and the accompanying NGO Forum as part of a wider effort by the foundation to engage with that country. She notes that Ford has had an office in Beijing since 1988, and thus is on a short list of major US foundations with a strong presence there. Yet, reflecting on her own visits to China’s Museum of Women and Children, Dr. Ristivojević observes that in these exhibits on Chinese women’s engagement with global women’s movements (and on the 1995 conference), there is no mention at all of the Ford Foundation’s support for the event, nor of its broader grantmaking that supported women’s scholarship and networking, women’s health programs, or other issues related to women. In her view – and in light of her findings in the records – this omission is striking. It suggests the need for further study into what she describes as an “erasure” of the Ford Foundation’s footprint. Seeking a better understanding this dynamic will be an integral part of her future research agenda, which will look at transnational social reformers engaging with Chinese reformers, with the goal of providing new insights on Chinese politics and society and their relationship with philanthropy.
Dušica Ristivojević is a senior researcher in the Department of Cultures of the University of Helsinki. She specializes in the longue-durée dynamics of China’s global interactions, print and digital media, and social organizing in and out of China. In 2023, she received a research stipend from RAC.
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.
