A New Direction to my Research

Last week I spoke with Dr. Berger about the future direction of my research. We both came to the conclusion that I should spend more time reading the Pan American Bulletin from the year 1907-1915, the years John Barrett was director of the Pan American Union. In these bulletins, I am looking for mentions of the Pan American men’s club based in New York in addition to evidence of John Barrett furthering a peaceful trade and cultural hegemon in Latin America. To be honest, the search is slow going but not without success. In the bulletin, special attention is always given to US trade gains in specific Latin American countries and the decline of European trade share. Also special detail is always given when a US bank loans money to a Latin America country, European loans are mentioned offhandedly. Essay contests and other such exchanges between Latin America and the United States are also given honorable mention. It is becoming apparent to me that John Barrett used the Pan American Bulletin to confirm and further a US led American hegemony.

Second Blog Post

Second Blog Post:

I’m into my second week of research on John Barrett and the Pan American Union and have encountered a problem. I started my research by compiling a list of documents at the New Barry Library that I should look into. I started with the publications by the Pan American Union which include the “Pan American Bulletin” and “Pan American Union Pamphlets”. The Bulletin was a catalog of information that came in 38 volumes of over a thousand pages per volume. Each volume contains all the financial and diplomatic information of each Latin American country for a given year starting in 1901 and going to 1939 which does not help me with my research. Each Latin American country comes with a short biography which I am hoping will reveal some understanding of Pan Americanism during the time. The Pamphlets are children’s stories about Latin American people and famous figures including Francisco Pizarro. These short stories informed U.S. children about Latin America. The major themes of the stories imparted US values. The major problem I have encountered with the Pamphlets is that the ones I have worked with thus far were written in 1942 during the “Good Neighbor” policy, outside the timeframe of my research. I had planned to rely on these documents for primary sources, but now I’m unsure if I can use them.