Scientific Activism, Philanthropy, and Forced Migrations: The Rockefeller Foundation and the Renewal of the Institute of General Anatomy and Embryology at the University of Buenos Aires, 1939-1946ABSTRACT
This article examines the renewal of the University of Buenos Aires School of Medical Sciences’ Institute of General Anatomy and Embryology from the late 1930s to the mid-1940s. It contributes to the sociological and historical literature on the institutionalization and professionalization of sciences, addressing the conditions that facilitated the pursuit of scientific research and the formation of internationally relevant specialties in Argentina. The article emphasizes the role of the Rockefeller Foundation in relation to physiologist Bernardo Houssay’s institutional initiatives, and it analyzes the circumstances that brought this process to a close and some of its long-term effects. The article draws primarily on correspondence between scientists and Rockefeller Foundation officials held at the Casa Museo Bernardo Houssay and documents by Rockefeller Foundation officials held at the Rockefeller Archives Center.
Keywords:
The Rockefeller Foundation; Bernardo Houssay; Scientific Promotion; Biomedical Research; Philanthropy