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Creator
CARE (Firm)
Call number
MssCol 470
Physical description
1494.41 linear feet (1495 boxes)
Language
Materials in English
Preferred Citation

CARE records, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library

Repository
Manuscripts and Archives Division
Access to materials
Request an in-person research appointment.Restrictions apply
Portions of this collection have been digitized and are available online.

Records of CARE document the organization's early years as a temporary relief agency in post-World War II Europe, and the evolution of its scope into international relief and development work. Materials include the files of CARE's executive staff, project files, administrative correspondence between CARE's headquarters and its overseas missions and regional field offices in the U.S. and Canada, reports, studies, press releases, and financial records. There is also documentation on the establishment of CARE International, MEDICO, which merged with CARE in 1962, and the Peace Corps, with which CARE worked closely from 1961 to 1967.

Biographical/historical information

CARE, the international relief organization, was formally organized in November 1945. Originally, the acronym CARE stood for the Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe. In 1953, as CARE expanded its services to other continents, it became the Cooperative for American Remittances to Everywhere, and in 1959, after CARE had shifted into other types of relief work besides food distribution, it changed to its present name, the Cooperative for American Relief Everywhere.

The three people central to CARE's creation were Wallace J. Campbell, director of the New York City office of the Cooperative League of the U. S. A., Arthur Ringland of the War Relief Control Board, and Lincoln Clark of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Association. All saw the need for what they envisioned as a temporary, non-governmental organization through which Americans could send emergency packages of food to friends and relatives in post-war Europe. Although the concept was not new, CARE differed from pre-existing relief organizations in that it was non-sectarian, did not direct its efforts toward any one nationality or ethnic group, and had the single goal of providing food, rather than attempting to deal with the multiple problems of clothing, shelter, and the relocation of refugees.

With the assistance of the American Council of Voluntary Agencies for Foreign Service, CARE's organizers found twenty-two agencies that agreed to become members of CARE, including the American Friends Service Committee, the International Rescue and Relief Committee, and Save the Children Federation. Representatives of each organization formed CARE's Board of Directors, which drew up the articles of incorporation on November 27, 1945, and began selecting an executive director and other staff members in December. Negotiations with host governments soon followed, and delivery of the first CARE packages of food took place in France six months later.

The earliest CARE packages were surplus U. S. Army "Ten-in-One" food parcels, originally intended as G. I. rations, which had the advantage of being pre-boxed and ready for shipment. In 1946, with the help of nutritionists, CARE started to design food packages aimed at families, eliminating such items as cigarettes, to replace the Ten-in-One parcels when that supply was exhausted. The more specialized packages substituted tea for coffee in parcels sent to Britain, added spaghetti to Italian packages, and included kosher packages. Within its first two years of operations, CARE was able to offer its donors a selection of more than a dozen different packages.

CARE's original goal was to ship parcels only to individuals or agencies specified by the donors. By early 1948, however, CARE was receiving numerous undesignated contributions from donors who wanted simply to help where the need was greatest. After much debate, the Board voted that spring to accept unspecified donations and provide more general relief. The move displeased and caused the resignation of several founding-member agencies who felt that by moving away from its original intent CARE was duplicating the efforts of existing organizations, but the response from donors was enthusiastic and contributions increased, allowing CARE personnel to expand their relief work and to begin to think of CARE as an ongoing organization, rather than a temporary one. In July 1948, CARE opened its first non-European mission, in Japan; others soon followed in India, Pakistan, and Mexico.

As the need for food abroad became less urgent, CARE initiated other forms of aid, sending farm tools and vocational training materials such as carpenter's and cobbler's kits. In 1949, CARE entered into a joint project with UNESCO to help restock libraries overseas and provide them with up-to-date scientific and technical literature. (See the description for Subseries 2. 6, Book Program Files.)

CARE was providing food and self-help programs in more than forty countries when Congress passed Public Law 480, the Agricultural Trade Development Assistance Act, in July 1954. Later renamed the Food for Peace Act by President Eisenhower, P. L. 480 gave private non-profit organizations access on a regular basis to U. S. government surplus food. For CARE, it meant the ability to expand supplemental feeding programs and disaster relief operations. Within a year, "CARE packages" constituted only about 25% of CARE's expenditures, with the remainder going toward the acquisition and shipment of U. S. surplus commodities as well as tools and other self-help materials.

In July 1955, the Executive Committee of CARE's Board of Directors voted to phase out twenty-two of its forty-two missions, mostly in European countries where the need was no longer great, and to concentrate efforts in the remaining countries on the bulk distribution of surplus foods in conjunction with the host governments, and on disaster and refugee assistance. This move also met with opposition, especially among some Board members who believed that CARE had achieved its original goals and should therefore cease all operations. But a majority felt otherwise, and in its tenth year, CARE began to broaden its scope and to evolve into the major international development organization it has become. (Materials from the July 1955 debate are in the Board of Directors' subject files, Box 6.)

During the next decade, CARE continued to expand its feeding and self-help programming and increasingly to undertake long-range development projects, with vocational kits, sewing machines, and tools gradually replacing food packages. In 1961, the directors of the newly-created Peace Corps sought CARE's assistance in training the first Peace Corps volunteers for service in Colombia; subsequent CARE-Peace Corps joint projects continued for another six years. The medical aid organization MEDICO, which had been working closely with CARE for several years, formally merged with CARE in 1962, thereby considerably increasing CARE's ability to provide trained health care personnel overseas and to distribute needed medical supplies. (For more detailed information, see the series descriptions for MEDICO, Series 7, and the Peace Corps, Series 8.)

By 1967, CARE had delivered its last traditional food package and was phasing out its vocational kits. In that same year, the organization signed its first self-help partnership agreement with another government, for the construction of schools in Honduras. Under the terms of such agreements, the host governments shared the costs of each project with CARE and with the communities affected by those projects.

The partnership agreements enabled CARE to begin development work on a larger scale. Previous projects, funded primarily by donor contributions, had been narrow and limited in scope, providing, for example, sewing machines or technical books for a specific village. Post-1967 projects were often country-wide rather than directed at a few communities, and largely entailed the construction of schools and the creation of nutrition centers. The latter became one of CARE's strongest areas of concentration; along with distributing surplus food acquired through P. L. 480, CARE also undertook nutrition education programs that were aimed especially at pregnant women and new mothers, and added a full-time nutritionist to its staff in 1969. (See the description for Subseries 2. 3.)

The partnership development agreements proved so successful that in 1973, CARE instigated a multi-year planning system, essentially the one in use at present, which allowed the agency to expand and intensify the sort of programming it had been doing. Under this system, projects became more multi-faceted: for instance, a health education project might include not only instruction on the basics of disease prevention and nutrition, but also a new sanitation system to provide safe water to a community, an agricultural program to produce a high-protein grain, and an irrigation system for growing it.

The 1970s also saw the internationalization of CARE, with CARE Canada's attainment of autonomy in 1973, and the founding of CARE Europe in 1976. In 1982, representatives of the various CAREs met to create CARE International, which coordinates policy - making and programming activities among its affiliate agencies. (See the description for Series 7, CARE International.)

Projects of the 1980s and early 1990s demonstrate CARE's increased efforts in the area of agro-forestry, particularly reforestation and soil conservation in eastern Africa and Central and South America. Along with its ongoing development work, CARE has continued to provide emergency food and shelter after natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods, and offers long-term relief assistance to victims of drought and famine, most notably in Ethiopia and Somalia. As of early 1991, there were CARE U. S. A. missions in thirty-nine nations.

Scope and arrangement

The records of CARE, 1945-1985, document the organization's initial years as a temporary relief agency in post-war Europe and the evolution of its scope into international development work, with missions in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. The bulk of the collection dates from circa 1950 to 1980; the volume of material drops sharply after 1980. There are also a few scattered items from 1986-1989.

Materials include the files of CARE's executive staff, project files, administrative correspondence between CARE's headquarters and its overseas missions and regional field offices in the U. S. and Canada, reports, studies, press releases, and financial records. There is also documentation on the establishment of CARE International, the activities of MEDICO, which merged with CARE in 1962, and the Peace Corps, with which CARE worked closely from 1961 to 1967. Nearly all of these materials are from CARE's central offices in New York; there are relatively few files from its overseas missions and regional offices, except in the cases of a few missions or offices that have closed.

CARE has retained certain items, including recent financial records, Human Resources Department files, and its film and picture archive. In some cases, as with donor files, materials were sampled, with the bulk remaining at or returned to CARE.

The CARE additions span the dates 1945-1997, with the bulk of the records documenting the 1970s and 1980s. These additions contain the original minutes of the Board of Directors of CARE, 1945-1991, from the organization's inception as a relief organization assisting war-torn Europe after World War II, to a modern 21st century organization that has expanded relief and extended self-reliance to developing countries.

Notable among these additions are the records of the Presidents of CARE. Series 10, Management 1945-1994, hold the files of President Edwin J. Wesley and Philip Johnston, President and Chief Executive Officer. The files of both of these presidents span over thirty years, Wesley from 196's through the 1980s, and Johnston's files from the 1970s to the mid 1990s. Johnston's records offer the most complete and detailed record for a former President and CEO. Other important administrator files include those of George H. Radcliffe, the Executive Vice-President. Radcliffe held a variety of positions with CARE and his records span the 1960s through the early 1990s. Overall, the files of CARE's top executives provide additional insight into policy-making decisions during the late 20th century. Series 10 also holds the records of CARESBAC, a CARE agency concerned with small business development. Founded in 1989, CARESBAC eventually became an independent non-profit agency known as SEAF (Small Enterprise Assistance Funds) in 1995.

The Program Department records, 1961-1993, form the largest series in the Additions. CARE developed projects in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and Central and South America, tackling issues such as agro-forestry, education, nutrition for mother and child, farming, and small business development. Most of the CARE records were generated by the former New York Headquarters before CARE moved to Atlanta in 1993.

The CARE records are arranged in thirteen series:

  • Series 1: Management Files
    1945-1987
    91 linear feet; 91 boxes

    Series 1, Management Files, consists primarily of the records of CARE's chief policy-makers and administrators: the Board of Directors, Executive Directors and Deputy Executive Directors, several of its Assistant Executive Directors, and its General Counsel. There are also annual reports, organizational histories, and related items.

  • Series 2: Program Department
    1949-1986 [bulk 1958-1980]
    435 linear feet; 435 boxes

    Program Department materials include administrators' files, particularly those of the nutritionists and the assistant director responsible for obtaining surplus agricultural commodities; country project files; departmental annual reports; and assorted forms, reports, and manuals.

  • Series 3: Overseas Operations
    1946-1984
    324 linear feet; 324 boxes

    Working in conjunction with the mission chiefs, the Overseas Operations Department staff is responsible for the administration of CARE's missions, including the acquisition and maintenance of supplies and equipment, the dissemination of information to and from each mission, and personnel and budgetary matters.

    Over ninety percent of this series consists of intra-CARE correspondence, in particular the numbered letters and cables exchanged between each mission and CARE headquarters in New York, and the log books in which each item of correspondence was recorded. There are also relatively complete runs of CARE's numbered administrative memos, 1947-1983, and ALMISes (letters from headquarters to all missions), 1957-1986.

    The remainder of materials in Series 3 consists of administrators' files, chiefly those of Bertran Smucker, who in 1958 became the director of Overseas Operations (then a division of Operations), and was the assistant executive director of Overseas Operations from 1965 to 1979. The series also includes a fairly complete run of discursive reports by country directors, 1946-1984; disaster files documenting CARE's response to natural catastrophes such as floods and earthquakes; and reports and other items from CARE's world and regional conferences.

  • Series 4: Public and Donor Relations Department
    1946-1989 [bulk 1962-1980]
    158 linear feet; 159 boxes

    The Public and Donor Relations Department has grown faster and changed its structure more frequently than other CARE departments. From about 1962 to 1980, when the bulk of these papers were created, it consisted of two main units: the Publicity or Public Relations Division (later Public Information, and now called Communications), which handled routine external inquiries about CARE and prepared and disseminated press releases and radio and television spots about CARE; and the National Field Operations Division (also called Field Services, Resource Development, and currently Development), which oversaw CARE's fund-raising activities, especially through its regional offices. Each division had its own director, who reported to the Assistant Executive Director of Public and Donor Relations.

    The Donor Services Division, which maintains information on individual and institutional contributors, has at various times been a separate unit, a part of Public Relations, and a subdivision of Resource Development. It appears here as a separate subseries.

  • Series 5: Financial Control and Procurement Files
    1947-1984 [bulk circa 1955-1970]
    24.5 linear feet; 27 boxes

    Budget plans, statistical tables, grant applications, memos, and other items from CARE's Finance and Procurement departments. The former, called Administrative Operations before 1964 and Financial Control from circa 1964 to 1981 deals with the budget, payroll, and other monetary concerns of CARE, and includes its Accounting, Remittance, Treasury and Insurance, and Data Processing divisions. The Procurement Department is responsible for the acquisition of agricultural commodities, MEDICO supplies, general and special purchases, and the shipping of all such materials.

    The items in this series represent only a small sample of those generated by either department. CARE has retained its recent Finance Department files and apparently routinely discarded most earlier ones. A January 1976 memo to Jack Thacher from Howard Powell, director of Procurement, mentions that the Procurement Department destroyed most of its inactive files in the early 1970s, owing to space limitations. Subseries descriptions follow.

  • Series 6: MEDICO
    1956-1986 [bulk 1962-1980]
    89 linear feet; 89 boxes

    There are 89 boxes of files in the MEDICO series, mainly containing administrators' correspondence, end-of-tour reports by contract personnel and volunteer specialists, VVS personnel files, and minutes of meetings and other materials of the MEDICO Advisory Board. Items date from MEDICO's earliest days to the mid-1980s.

    Researchers should note that in 1981, at the request of the Western Historical Manuscript Collection of the University of Missouri in St. Louis, CARE donated several files of original correspondence from Tom Dooley to the W. H. M. C.'s Thomas A. Dooley III Collection.

    Related MEDICO materials can also be found in the files of Ralph Devone (Program Department Box 104) and in Boxes 863-870, the files of Jack Thacher and Ron Burkard, Assistant Executive Directors of the Public and Donor Relations Department.

  • Series 7: CARE International
    1967-1986
    19 linear feet; 19 boxes
  • Series 8: The Peace Corps
    1960-1967
    20 linear feet; 20 boxes

    The bulk of Series 8 consists of contracts, budget proposals, administrative correspondence, and progress reports, as well as items pertaining to the selection and training of each contingent of volunteers. Most of the files are those of CARE's Program Department staff members: Gordon Alderfer, the Program Department A. E. D. in 1961; Ralph Greenlaw, Program Department Director; and Merton Cregger, director of the Colombia Peace Corps Project. There are also Peace Corps files of Lou Samia, then the A. E. D. for Administrative Operations, and those of James Lambie, A. E. D. for special assignments.

  • Series 9: Audio-Visual Materials
    1947-1985 [bulk 1968-1979]
    4.5 linear feet; circa 230 items; 4 boxes

    Series 9 consists of posters, charts, films, slides, and sound recordings, chiefly reel-to-reel tapes. Most of these items were produced by the Public Relations Department for promotional purposes, or by the Program Department for use overseas in health education projects.

    As mentioned in the Scope and Content Note, CARE has retained most of its audio-visual materials, chiefly photographs, slides, motion pictures, and videotapes. Items in Series 9 were separated during processing from the Public Relations and Program Departments files in which they had been stored.

  • Series 10: Management files
    1945-1997

    Continues Series 1.

  • Series 11: Program Department Files
    1961-1997
    167 boxes

    Continues Series 2.

  • Series 12: Overseas Operations Files
    1961-1990
    17 boxes

    This series continues Series 3, Overseas Operations. The Country Files document only the year 1988, and most closely relate to Series 3.2 Numbered Country Correspondence, 1947-1984.

    The remaining files include materials on CARE's world conferences, 1961-1982, and ALMISs Files, 1986-1990.

  • Series 13: Donor and Public Relations Department
    1979-1990
    79 boxes

    The Donor and Public Relations Department (formerly the Public Relations and Donor Department) is described in Series 4.

Administrative information

Source of acquisition

Additions (Series 10-13): Donated by CARE, 1994, 1998

Processing information

Laura K. O'Keefe, John S. Drew, and Laura Bailey of The New York Public Library; Margaret Ford of CARE, March 1991

CARE Records Additions: Valerie Wingfield, July 2006

Related Material

About thirteen linear feet of material on CARE, 1948-1984, are among the files of Wallace J. Campbell at the Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, Missouri. (Campbell, one of CARE's founders, has been a member of its Board of Directors since 1945 and its President Emeritus since 1986.) Coverage is especially extensive for the meetings of CARE's Board of Directors, 1948-1979, and for the activities of CARE International in the early and mid-1980s.

The Nationwide Insurance Company Archives in Columbus, Ohio, include the papers of Murray D. Lincoln, CARE's first President (1945-1957) and the Chairman of its Board of Directors from 1957 until his death in 1966. Among his files are about half a dozen boxes containing material on CARE, mostly from the early 1950s through the mid-1960s.

The papers of Thomas A. Dooley, co-founder of MEDICO, are in the Western Historical Manuscripts Collection at the University of Missouri, St. Louis. In 1981, at the WHMC's request, CARE transferred several files of Dooley's correspondence there.

Published works about CARE include an anecdotal history by Wallace J. Campbell, The History of CARE: A Personal Account, (Praeger, 1990), the most detailed and up-to-date description of CARE's origins and growth to 1989. American Philanthropy Abroad: A History by Merle Curti (Rutgers, 1963) devotes part of one chapter to CARE's early years.The Alms Race: The Impact of American Voluntary Aid Abroad, by Eugene Linden (Random House, 1976), is a skeptical look at the effectiveness of relief organizations, but it does offer one perspective on aspects of CARE's operations in the 1970s.

Using the collection

Location

Manuscripts and Archives Division
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street, New York, NY 10018-2788
Brooke Russell Astor Reading Room, Third Floor, Room 328

Conditions Governing Use

Quotation for publication requires permission from CARE and from the New York Public Library

Access restrictions

One folder of Management files and three folders of Peace Corps personnel files are restricted until 2040; otherwise, access is.