ABSTRACT
This chapter addreses a case of philanthropy within the field of the social sciences: the Rockefeller grant given to the Research Center for American History (CIHA), created at the Faculty of Philosophy and Education of the University of Chile. The case allows analysing national, regional and international constraints that contributed to shape the disciplines structure, and retrace social and academic trajectories of the Centers members. CIHA operated actively for eight years, from 1960 to 1968 and its brief existence was linked, from the outset, to philanthropy, since it was the result of a negotiation initiated by John Harrison, official of the Rockefeller Foundation, and Eugenio Pereira Salas, a Chilean historian. Radicalization of the student movement triggered the reformist front, composed of modernizing sectors, and forced a demarcation of their interests that compelled them to settle the issues in the political field. CIHAs autonomy was confronted by sectors who advocated interests beyond the purely academic.
