Expanding Educational Empires: the USA, Great Britain, and British Africa, Circa 1902-1944 Sarah Dunitz Submitted in Partial
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Expanding Educational Empires: The USA, Great Britain, and British Africa, circa 1902-1944 Sarah Dunitz Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of the Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2017 © 2017 Sarah Dunitz All rights reserved ABSTRACT Expanding Educational Empires: The USA, Great Britain, and British Africa, circa 1902-1944 Sarah Dunitz “Expanding Educational Empires” explores the interventions of American philanthropic foundations in educational programs for British Africa after the First World War. It reveals the extent to which a discourse of education – pedagogy and research – allowed American philanthropic groups, and the numerous governmental and nongovernmental organizations with which they cooperated, to shape the interwar British Empire, and institutionalize a colonial ideology that aligned with American corporate and cultural interests. American philanthropists portrayed these interwar colonial activities as benevolent, apolitical enterprises, glossing over the fact that their influence over the overlapping agencies with which they cooperated filtered easily into official organs of power. By the 1940s, when the Anglo-American partnership no longer served the interests of American-based global capital, American philanthropists performed an effortless volte-face against a mercantilist British Empire. They now found it expedient to invoke both their nation’s ingrained hostility to colonialism and their expertise in native affairs, which had been attained primarily through support of interwar British imperialism, as justification for meddling in the postwar international arena, using education to construct a global community committed to corporate American preferences. This project investigates the close collaboration between American and British agents in the formulation of interwar colonial education, exposing it as a comprehensive program that entailed accumulating knowledge about British territories, particularly in Africa, and disseminating the findings worldwide, thereby establishing new ideological and economic international assumptions. It reveals that American interference in this ambitious project constituted an extension of the longstanding domestic state-building endeavors of early-twentieth-century American philanthropic foundation managers, and their partners. The “unofficial”, humanitarian framework of education allowed a web of American agents to smoothly and remarkably embed themselves in a foreign government’s operations with the ulterior motive of powering American international influence, a story that has significant implications today. TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments............................................................................................................... ii INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................................1 CHAPTER 1: In God We Trust .........................................................................................30 CHAPTER 2: Americanizing British Education ...............................................................68 CHAPTER 3: Americanizing British Africa ...................................................................100 CHAPTER 4: Advancing African Anthropology ............................................................135 CHAPTER 5: Worldly Women .......................................................................................175 CHAPTER 6: The End of the Affair................................................................................211 CHAPTER 7: God’s Englishmen ....................................................................................255 EPILOGUE ......................................................................................................................299 Bibliography ....................................................................................................................311 i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is with great pleasure that I am able to thank the teachers, friends, and family that made this dissertation possible. I owe an immense debt of gratitude to my outstanding dissertation advisor, Alice Kessler-Harris, whose unlimited kindness, persistent “checking-ins,” extraordinary expertise, and incisive editing skills enabled me to complete this daunting project. Professor Kessler-Harris, a pioneer in the field of women’s history, skillfully navigated the historical problems that I tackled, and sharpened my resulting interpretation. It has been a privilege to be one of Alice’s last doctoral students; she has been a wonderful mentor and friend. It has been an honor to work with Ira Katznelson. His fascinating yearlong course on American political development shaped my academic interests, and spawned my conceptualization of this dissertation. I entered Columbia intending to study American History. Professor Katznelson’s expansive, comparative approach prompted me (almost subconsciously) to examine the points of convergence and differentiation between the country where I had been raised, and my adopted home: two nations that share intellectual traditions, but vary tremendously. Additionally, it was always a pleasure to reminisce about England with a devoted Anglophile. Susan Pedersen has been a remarkable asset on the British side of things. After I expressed my interest in applying American political development questions to British history, she helped me to craft an orals field on the evolution of the British state. After I informed Professor Pedersen of my dissertation plan to embark on a relational analysis of ii early-twentieth-century British and American educators, she made the fruitful suggestion that I start by looking at the records of the Phelps-Stokes Fund, conveniently located in nearby Harlem. Tracing the preoccupations, movements, and correspondence of the directors of this small American philanthropic foundation played a crucial role in this study. I am tremendously grateful that Seth Koven agreed to join my dissertation defense committee. His scholarship has had a significant impact on this work. I am also indebted to religious historian, Gale Kenny, for meeting me early on in my writing process to discuss a world of missionaries that, until then, I knew relatively little about, and subsequently agreeing to add her unique perspective to my dissertation committee. I have also profited from the expertise of so many other members of Columbia’s excellent History faculty throughout my doctoral studies, and I am particularly thankful to Eric Foner, Evan Haefeli, and Emma Winter, for guiding my historical approach in the fields of American and British History. Several archivists and librarians gave me helpful assistance on both sides of the Atlantic. My thanks go to the librarians in all of the archives mentioned in the bibliography. I am especially grateful to Maira Liriano at the Schomburg Center, Jessica Womack at the Institute of Education, Joan Duffy at Yale Divinity Library, and Betty Bolden at the Burke Library Archives. I would also like to thank the Columbia University History Department for helping to fund my research. I am grateful to Jeffrey Herman and Amy Serota for reading various iterations of this dissertation, and recommending valuable changes. iii I am beholden to my family; without their backing this project would have floundered. My dedicated husband, Michael Grunfeld, edited much of what I wrote. He also gladly assumed full responsibility of our toddler son for weekends at a time while I struggled to write. I am grateful for his companionship, wit, and love; I could not ask for a better partner. I also thank our darling son, Alfie, for always making me laugh. I am appreciative to Sharon and Larry Grunfeld for agreeing to babysit so frequently, enabling me to dedicate time to this dissertation. And I would not manage without my sister Katya’s encouraging face time pep talks that never fail to brighten my day. Lastly, I thank my parents, Ruth and Martin Dunitz. My father’s wide-ranging interests and intellectual pursuits know no bounds; he embodies the title “world citizen” more than the moralizing, self-righteous educational reformers that embraced this label, and populate the pages ahead. He is also the most devoted father, and emboldened me to pursue this project. And, although I do not wish to replicate the gendered paradigms harnessed by the female protagonists of this tale, my mother epitomizes the warmth and compassion that they purported to offer as women, alongside the sharp intelligence that they exhibited as scholars. She has been an endless well of support. She provided penetrating critiques of chapter drafts, babysat an infant son while I gallivanted off to various archives, and volunteered continual reassurance. I dedicate this dissertation to them, with gratitude and love. iv INTRODUCTION By his work in tropical Africa Doctor Jesse Jones has earned the gratitude of all who realize, however dimly, the pregnant significance of Africa to the modern world. The reports of the Phelps-Stokes Commissions, of which he was the chairman and leader, have left a deep mark on the minds of governments, missionary societies, planters, natives, and all who are concerned for the welfare of Africa. More than any other man, he has given a new turn to British administrative policy in regard to African native education. Michael Sadler, 1926. 1 This dissertation explores the interventions of American philanthropic foundations, like