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Guide to the Siobhan Nicolau Papers,
1968-1981
Special Collections M748
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Table of contents
Title: Siobhan Nicolau Papers,
Date (inclusive): 1968-1981
Collection number: Special Collections M748
Creator: Nicolau, Siobhan
Extent:
5 linear ft
Repository:
Stanford University. Libraries. Dept. of Special Collections and University Archives.
Language:
English.
None.
Property rights reside with the repository. Literary rights reside with the creators of the documents or their heirs. To obtain
permission to publish or reproduce, please contact the Public Services Librarian of the Dept. of Special Collections.
Gift of Siobhan Nicolau, 1995.
[Identification of item] Siobhan Nicolau Papers, M748, Dept. of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford,
Calif.
This collection contains papers amassed by Siobhan Oppenheimer-Nicolau during her tenure as Program Officer at the Ford Foundation.
It includes important documentation chronicling the development of the Southwest Council of La Raza, the controversies surrounding
the Mexican American Youth Organization and the Nixon administration crisis concerning bribery and influence brokering between
federal employees and grant applicants from Hispanic community organizations. While the collection is primarily concerned
with the formation of specifically Hispanic grant programs, other minority groups and public policy objectives are also represented
within the Nicolau Papers. As a whole, these documents provide insight on the changing philanthropic goals of the Ford Foundation
from the late 1960's through early 1980's, as well as the diversity of the applicants themselves.
Internal Ford Foundation Documents--including inter-office correspondence, memos, and discussion papers on policy issues targeted
by the Foundation--comprise the first series in the collection. The second series, Nicolau Documents and Speeches, contains
draft copies of informal addresses, as well as several drafts of a paper on the challenges facing Hispanic-Americans in the
1980s, through which the development of her own opinions on the appropriate role of philanthropy within the Hispanic community
can be traced. The last series, Foundation Grants, makes up the bulk of the collection. It is loosely subdivided by subject,
following the Ford Foundation's own identifications (as Delegated Authority Programs) where possible. Some series--particularly
the Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Hispanics--overlap somewhat, either because of an applicant's more generalized outlook toward policy,
or a change in the Ford Foundation's internal funding designations or record keeping. The folder titles within the series
usually identify the target population: The Puerto Rican Defense Fund, for example, is clearly directed toward Puerto Ricans,
although it is part of the Ford Foundation's Hispanics Delegated Authority Program.