Barry Goldberg

Barry Goldberg is a Senior Writer and Editor at the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan nonprofit working to build a better government and a stronger democracy. He holds a PhD in History and was previously a postdoctoral fellow at the Rockefeller Archive Center.

1960s

The Birth of International Agricultural Research Institutes in the Mid-20th Century

Rockefeller Foundation agriculture programs begun in Mexico achieved global reach through four major research institutes. Building them was the result of partnership.

1970s 1980s

For Small Farmers and Food Security: The International Agricultural Development Service

In the 1980s, critics argued that some groups had been left behind by the Green Revolution.

A “Constructive and Important Failure”: A Foundation Funds Job Training in the 1970s and 1980s

Prompted by Reagan-era budget cuts, a new program serving low-income single parents receiving public aid failed to meet its constituents’ needs.

1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s

Black Education and Rockefeller Philanthropy from the Jim Crow South to the Civil Rights Era

Applying a vast fortune to the American race problem, but with decades of false assumptions and well-intended approaches that fell short.

Philanthropy’s Search for an HIV Vaccine: Building Public-Private Partnerships in a Global Pandemic

How a meeting of scientists and health experts sparked a new international campaign to find a way to prevent AIDS.

1990s

In Brief: “Manels” Before #MeToo

A foundation’s early criticism of the all-male conference panel, before #nomoremanels

Black African American Boy Scout Leaders (Scoutmasters) pose for a photograph, sitting in rows with an American flag

1920s 1930s

Who Belongs in the Boy Scouts? Philanthropy’s Support for Black Scouting

A foundation struggled to make one of America’s oldest youth organizations more racially inclusive. But it only got so far under Jim Crow.

1960s 1970s

Ted Watkins and the Rockefeller Foundation: An Unlikely Partnership

How a charismatic community activist from Watts challenged a foundation’s civil rights strategy through a jobs training program.

1920s 1940s

John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Creates a National Park

Who defines the public good? The showdown caused when a wealthy philanthropist bought land and tried to give it to the American people.