Images of the Philippines from the Gerow D. Brill papers
About this collection
This digital collection includes digitized photos of glass negatives taken by Gerow D. Brill during the early years of the US Occupation of the Philippines. Brill's photos provide a unique lens into an important moment in Philippine history when many were still reeling from war. Based on his letters of correspondence, these photos were likely taken during his time in the archipelago in 1900 and in 1902.
The digitization of these materials was part of a larger dissertation project that explored how discourses of agricultural productivity informed the American imperial project in the Philippines. These glass negatives were selected from the Gerow D. Brill papers, which are housed in Cornell University Library’s Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections. These items were selected for digitization to highlight unexplored themes in the historiography of Philippine Studies--particularly the relationship between imperialism, agricultural extension projects, and ideas of development--as well as to increase accessibility and awareness of Philippine-related materials in Cornell University’s collections.
Historical context
Brill was a scientific explorer for the United States Department of Agriculture who had been stationed in China. He was in charge of the Hupeh Agricultural College and Experimental Farm in Wuchang, China and was planning to explore the upper Yangtze Valley around the time of the Boxer Rebellion (1899 -1901). His work involved plant introduction, agricultural education in new scientific fields such as horticulture, and investigations of potential transplantations of seedlings from the Far East into the United States. Soon after the outbreak of the Philippine-American War in 1899, perhaps because of his experience in China, Brill was selected to organize an experimental station and agricultural school in Negros Island, the primary sugar-producing island in the archipelago. While waiting to start his post, Brill traveled throughout the Philippines in 1902 to survey agricultural conditions and to provide recommendations for a new school, initially intended to be established on La Granja, the sugar plantation of Juan Araneta. Throughout the US period, experimental agricultural stations and schools would be established throughout the archipelago to conduct experiments on subjects such as seed and crop selection and soil quality. These institutions reveal two foci of the American imperial project in the Philippines: the expansion of public works projects and the strengthening of industrial education. Justified under the logic of so-called "benevolent imperialism", these reveal the discursive and political contours of U.S. imperialism and prefigure the Philippine postcolonial state’s attempts at national development.
Using the collection
For more information about this collection, please contact the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections at rareref@cornell.edu.
More information
- Collection steward
- Katherine Reagan, Ernest L. Stern '56 Curator of Rare Books & Manuscripts
- Metadata creation
- Claire Cororaton, PhD Candidate in History
- Funding
- Grants Program for Digital Collections in Arts and Sciences, awarded to Claire Cororaton, PhD Candidate in History, along with collaborator, Emily Zinger Southeast Asia Digital Librarian, Cornell University Library, 2020.
- Credits
- This collection overview was adapted from an introduction to the collection written by Claire Cororaton, PhD Candidate in History and last reviewed by Katherine Reagan, collection steward, in 2025.
- Collection sources