Fred Soper
The Fred Soper papers part A are an incomplete, yet informative, collection of entries from Fred Soper’s diaries during his time as an agent of hookworm eradication for the International Health Division (IHD) of the Rockefeller Foundation (RF). Soper’s writing is clearly tailored to an audience, this is shown in how he sometimes portrays himself as a bumbling tourist type, struggling to get by in a foreign country because he is “of a complacent disposition” (Soper 26). His audience is likely contemporary Americans, this is evidenced by the paragraph in which he writes about how a contemporary American might feel to take railway transport in Brazil (Soper 25). He comes off as much more relatable than a the “general at war” he would …show more content…
This section poses the difficulty of solving a zero-sum game. Soper and his team must decide to give the serum (the most effective plague cure) to the local populace or to save it for themselves. Soper leaves out the decision he and his team make, writing “Our answer to the question will not be noted here” (Soper 5) But it can be surmised from the exclusion of their decision that they did not distribute it. This choice paints Soper as a pragmatist, but also cold and calculating: he knows he must leave out his decision to help deflect future criticism of his presence in Brazil. Soper’s self censoring nature comes through strong in these papers, and allows the reader to better grasp the dissonance between two Sopers. “General” Fred Soper is the militaristic man focused on the goal of eradication at all costs. This image of Fred Soper is in large part established after his work with Yellow Fever and the MEP (See Gladwell). “Tourist” Fred Soper is the man Soper attempts to become through his journal entries. Altruistic and hopeful, this Fred Soper is a product of Soper’s desire to come off well in his diary