This dissertation demonstrates how a transnational conception of poor people as 'backwards' and culturally distinct emerged from the nexus of intellectuals, activists, and administrators who shaped U.S. domestic and international policies in the 20th century. This conception, stemming from the early 20th century Anglo-American discourse of race contact and culture change, has informed subsequent political debate over why those who are unable to "pull themselves up by the bootstraps" are excluded from the fruits of modernity. Linking the histories of the Inter-American Indian Institute, founded in the 1930s, with the development of the domestic Peace Corps in the 1960s, this project occupies the space between U.S. history and the history of U.S. foreign relations, particularly revisiting the traditional fragmentation of the histories of international development and domestic anti-poverty policies.
Jahanbani, Sheyda F.A.,
"A Different Kind of People: The Poor at Home and Abroad, 1935-1968"
(2009).
History Theses and Dissertations.
Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library.
https://doi.org/10.7301/Z03F4N36
