Decade: 1910s

What began as a philanthropic fund to honor its namesake became an early force in the social sciences.

Working to change US medical education was one of the Rockefeller Foundation’s biggest endeavors in the 1910s and 1920s, extending from Johns Hopkins in Baltimore to Beijing, China.

When Dr. Katherine Bement Davis was named general secretary of the Bureau in 1917, her appointment transformed the organization to take into deeper account women’s sexuality.

A massive program in nursing education extended to 53 schools across the globe. But it never became a top priority of the foundation that supported it.

Programs designed to build public health infrastructure, eradicate disease, and increase access to healthcare have formed the core of more than a hundred years of one foundation’s strategy.

In the early 20th century, the General Education Board was devoted to the cause of improving education throughout the United States, without distinction of race, sex, or creed.

A foundation set on eradicating mosquito-born diseases had to accept that disease control was good enough.

As the scarcity of global resources became increasingly worrisome in the 20th century, these organizations more boldly approached work in population and family planning.

Global war drew a new philanthropy into relief work.

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