Founded in 1955 by Dr. Vera D. Rubin (1911–1985), RISM brought the burgeoning methodologies of the social sciences to bear on the study of developing and rapidly changing societies. Much of this seminal work was pioneered in the Caribbean, and the Collections form an important resource for that region. But they document as well the breadth of social science research that has flourished at RISM, as researchers in fields ranging from history to anthropology, medicine to demographics have sought to understand the human experience through the lens of societies being transformed by economic and social forces. Below are links to the finding aids to the RISM archival collections housed in the New York University Archives.