Ulysses of Chicago: American Foundations and Public Administration 1900-1960

Abstract

Public Administration as a discipline and a field emerged in the USA in the inter war period with a strong support from the Rockefeller organizations, the Spelman Fund of New York being the main granting agency in the field. This emergence was closely connected to the European experience. This essay attempts to reconstruct the domestic and international settings in which this interchange took place, to pay attention to all those who played a large role in foundation work without being foundation officers, to trace the shifting roles of the European reference in the field of US public administration and to assess the impact of the European work in the field of government. Accordingly, Europe appears to be first a source rather than a target, and then a channel to the wider world rather than a scene of operation.