Decade: 1950s

1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 2000s

The Rockefeller Foundation’s 20th-Century Global Fight Against Disease

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.

1950s

International Cooperation and Soft Diplomacy: The Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center

Convenings at Bellagio have tackled global challenges of every sort, from trade and finance to public health, agriculture, and food security.

1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s

“Without Distinction of Race, Sex, or Creed”: The General Education Board, 1903-1964

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.

1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s

Eradication or Control? The Rockefeller Foundation’s Global Anti-Malaria Campaigns

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

1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s

Rockefeller Philanthropy and Population-Related Fields

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

1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s

The Rockefeller Foundation’s Agriculture Program in India

India was not the first country to take up the new seeds and methods developed by the Rockefeller Foundation, but the story of India’s adoption of them in the 1960s is dramatic.

1940s 1950s 1960s

The Rockefeller Foundation’s Mexican Agriculture Program, 1943-1965

The Rockefeller Foundation’s first intensive agriculture endeavor is now credited with launching the global transformation known as the “Green Revolution.”

1940s 1950s

The Rockefeller Foundation and Civil Liberties During the Early Cold War

A foundation-supported publication challenged McCarthyism and caused a controversy.

1950s 1960s 1970s

Funding a Social Movement: The Ford Foundation and Civil Rights, 1965-1970

A story recounting many accusations, from rigged elections to the meddling of big private money in grassroots organizing.

1950s 1960s

Early Experiments in Public Broadcasting

The American public broadcast system as it exists today came out of years of work by organized philanthropy.