Biographical Memoirs Volume 57 (1987) / Chapter Skim
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J. George Harrar
J. George Harrar
Pages 26-57
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Born on December 2, 1906, in Painesville, Ohio, George shared with his brother Ellwooc! Scott, Jr., two years older, and his sister Marjorie, three years younger than he, the parental guidance typical of an Ohio family at that time.
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George stayed at Oberlin; he could have graduated in 1927 after the customary four-year period but remained for a fifth year to take additional courses and to captain the track team. Throughout his life, George was "George" to almost everyone, but he was "Dutch" to the few who knew of his prowess on the Oberlin track team.
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Following graduation from Oberlin, George had hoped to enroll in medical school, but the Depression precluded such a long and expensive period of education. Instead he won a teaching fellowship in plant pathology at {owe State University where he studied under the direction of I
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George left Puerto Rico in 1934 to accept a Firestone fellowship and to become an instructor in plant pathology at the University of Minnesota. He went there because he wanted to work toward his Ph.D.
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In the fall, the hunting for quail and grouse was goocl. As a volunteer, George coached the VPI track team.
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less than two years at Washington State College because George accepted] an offer to become the local director of the Mexican Agricultural Program, which the Rockefeller Foundation had clecicled to initiate in 1943.
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. GEORGE HARRAR 33 cal problems associated with plant disease agents rather than on pragmatic problems of producing basic food crops.
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to another. George set the life-style, the ethic, of the Mexican Agricultural Program; to wit, "work harcI, play hard, but above all, work hard." Even socializing at frequent house parties (discotheques in a sense)
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in the banquets at the Tower Suite of the Time anct Life Builcling in New York. In New York as deputy director for agriculture, George sometimes chafed under Warren Weaver's clirection.
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It also came partly from the idea that an international effort might offer freedom from the constraints of operating at national levels through the bureaucracies of foreign countries; but mainly TRRI arose out of the need to improve rice production in Asia. Harrar, whose vision always sought the financial horizon beyond existing monetary barriers, knew that the Rockefeller Foundation could not by itself finance the first of the international agricultural research centers- let alone those to follow.
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George carrier] into the presidency his "clo it yourself" philosophy sharpened by his lan(l-grant college experiences anct by the successes of the Mexican Agricultural Program.
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The economy was robust, inflation was insignificant, and the Rockefeller Foundation's assets rose to nearly a billion dollars, a level not to be reached again until the early 1980s. The Foundation trustees were relaxed; they dipped into capital annually at times to the extent of $ ~ 0 million to $ ~ 5 millionto finance especially worthwhile projects.
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legislation. Indeed, in his oral history George reported: The Chairman of the Board tof the Rockefeller Foundation]
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BorIaug had won his Nobel Peace Prize anc! was continuing his research in Mexico on wheat as an associate director in New York; Dorothy Parker, trained as a botanist, was specializing in library clevelopment; Sterling Wortman, a plant breeder, had become the Foundation's vice-presiclent for the natural, environmental, and agricultural sciences; plant breeder E
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From page 41... ...
White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University; and above all, he still engaged in institution building. Sterling Wortman, vice-president of the Rockefeller Founclation, called on George to become a trustee and chairman of the board of the newly created International Agricultural Development Service to help that institution meet its mandate to promote the application of modern agricultural research to problems of development among the nations of Latin America, Asia, and Africa.
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Hess, archivist of the Rockefeller Foundation, supplied me with information on George's testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee; and from the material he gave me I have excerpted quotations from George's oral history.
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, University of Minnesota Assistant Professor, Biology, Virginia Polytechnic In stitute 1937 - 1941 Associate Professor, Biology, Virginia Polytechnic In stitute 1941 Professor, Virginia Polytechnic Institute 1941-1942 Professor and Head, Department of Plant Pathology, and Head, Division of Plant Pathology, Agricultural 1935-1937 43
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1970-1976 Kimberly-Clark Corporation 1964-1978 Nutrition Foundation (Chairman of the Board, 1972-78) TRUSTEESHIPS 1973-1962 Chairman, Draper World Population Fund 1960-1962 The International Rice Research Institute 1962-1973 Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio 1972-1978 The Near East Foundation, New York 1975-1982 Chairman of the Board, International Agricultural Development Service MEMBERSHIPS 1966-1982 National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C.
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1973-1979 Rockefeller University Council, New York 1973 Scientific Delegation to visit the People's Republic of China 1973-1975 Panel II on Food, Health, World Population, and Quality of Life, Commission on Critical Choices for 1974-1976 1974-1977 Americans Commission on U.S.-Latin American Relations Corporation Visiting Committee, Department of Nu trition and Food Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1967-1973 Visiting Committee to Harvard Medical School and School of Dental Medicine 1960 President Eisenhower's Science Advisory Committee 1975-1979 President's General Advisory Committee on Foreign Assistance Program 1966-1972 Mayor's Science and Technology Advisory Council, New York City 1973 - 1978 Advisory Board, New Perspective Fund, Inc. 1952 - 1982 American Academy of Arts and Sciences 1962-1982 American Philosophical Society 1968-1982 Chairman, National Advisory Council of the Monell Chemical Senses Center, University of Pennsylva nia HONORARY MEMBERSHIPS 1957 Brazilian Society of Geneticists 1966 Asociacion Ecuatoriana de Ingenieros Agronomos, Ecuador FELLOWSHIPS 1939-1982 American Association for the Advancement of Sci1965 1972 LEARNED SOCIETIES ence American Phytopathological Society Royal Society of Arts, London Andrew W
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46 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS American Philosophical Society Italian National Academy of Agriculture, Bologna World Academy of Art and Science Japan Academy of Sciences OTHER HONORS AND AWARDS 1950 Certificate for Meritorious Service to Agriculture, University of Florida 1952 Medal of Agricultural Merit, Government of Mexico 1952 Medal of Agricultural Merit, Government of the State of Coahuila, Saltillo (Mexico) 1953 Outstanding Achievement Award, University of Minnesota 1953 Distinguished Alumnus Citation from Oberlin College 1954 Cruze de Boyaca, "Caballero," Republic of Colombia 1958 Chilean Order of Merit, "Bernardo O'Higgins" "Oficial"; "Gran Oficial," 1962 1960 Citation and Medallion of Merit, University of Arizona 1961 Citation and diploma for contributions to agricultural improvement in the Americas, from the Diplomatic Corps in Honduras representing Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, E1 Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, and Venezuela 1962 Presidential Award, American Public Health Association 1963 Public Welfare Medal, National Academy of Sciences 1963 Decoration from the Government of Ecuador, "Caballero," for Agricultural Merit 1964 Order of the Golden Heart, Government of the Philippines 1965 Governor's Award, State of Ohio, for the Advancement of the Prestige of Ohio 1968 Inter-American Agricultural Medal, Inter-American Institute of Agricultural Sciences of the Organization of American States, Costa Rica 1969 Elvin Charles Stakman Award, University of Minnesota 1970 Distinguished Achievement Citation, Iowa State University 1971 The first Edward W
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Atwater Medal 1974 Americas Award 1975 Underwood-Prescott Memorial Award, Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1980 Harrar Hall (training and dormitory complex of the International Rice Research Institute) named in honor of Dr.
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Cercospora leaf spot of Calendula spp. (Abstract.)
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Plant pathology in Mexico. In: Plants and Plant Science in Latin America.
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Book review of New Life in Old Lands by Kathleen McLaughlin. New York Times Book Review, November 21, p.
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(Also in: Paper no. 107 of the Agricultural Journal Series Papers of The Rockefeller Foundation.)
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(An address to the spring meeting of the Nutrition Foundation, March 6.) New York: The Rockefeller Foundation.
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(Paper presented at the spring meeting of the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia.) New York: The Rockefeller Foundation.
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(Discourse given before the First International Congress of Plant Pathology, London, July 16, 1968.) New York: The Rockefeller Foundation.
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New York: The Rockefeller Foundation. Supplementary statement on foundations and tax exemption before the House Committee on Ways and Means, Washington, D.C., July 9.
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Impressions of China (based on a visit to the People's Republic of China on a scientific and scholarly exchange mission under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences, the Social Science Research Council, and the Council of Learned Societies, May 11-June 17~. 1975 Nutrition and Numbers in the Third World: The 1974 ~ O
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