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The Ford Foundation International Fellowships Program (IFP) offered fellowships for post-graduate study to leaders from marginalized communities in Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and Russia from 2001-2013. Paper, digital, and audiovisual materials document the planning and administration of the program, as well as the selection, placement, and monitoring of over 4,300 Fellows that participated in the program. The records document a unique educational model that linked access to higher education, international development, and social change.

This collection contains the records of the Research in Contemporary Cultures project (1947-1953) begun by Ruth Benedict at Columbia University, and carried out by Margaret Mead at Columbia University and the American Museum of Natural History after Benedict's death in 1948. The records of three successor projects, Studies in Soviet Culture (1948-1952), Studies in Contemporary Culture (1951-1952), and and Study Program of Human Health and the Ecology of Man (1954-1956) are also included. The purpose of these projects was anthropological study at a distance of global cultures inaccessible for direct observation, in an attempt to establish the "national character" of countries of geopolitical interest to the United States government.