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.