Topic: Medicine & Public Health

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Issues in Philanthropy

Timeline: American Foundations and the History of Public Health

Key points in the history of American foundations’ engagement with public health.

Black-and-white image of an American Red Cross sanitation vehicle
Medicine & Public Health

Public Health: How the Fight Against Hookworm Helped Build a System

A hundred years ago, hookworm disease was an epidemic across the US South. Northern philanthropy tried to help.

Medicine & Public Health

Funding a Sexual Revolution: The Kinsey Reports

The inside story of the study that first questioned binary sexuality and spurred outcry and controversy.

1920s 1930s 1940s

The Rockefeller Foundation’s Role in Creating the Atomic Bomb

In the aftermath, Foundation staff struggled to rectify their organization’s involvement with this weapon of mass destruction.

1930s 1940s

World War II & the Rockefeller Foundation

Saving threatened scholars and confronting a dramatically changed world.

1910s

World War I & the Rockefeller Foundation

Global war drew a new philanthropy into relief work.

Black-and-white image of an American Red Cross sanitation vehicle

Timeline: American Foundations and the History of Public Health

Key points in the history of American foundations’ engagement with public health.

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.

1900s

Sour Milk: Preventing Infant Mortality with Public Health

Philanthropy’s role in cleaning up the milk supply prompted better federal food safety protections.

1910s 1920s 1930s

Public Health: How the Fight Against Hookworm Helped Build a System

A hundred years ago, hookworm disease was an epidemic across the US South. Northern philanthropy tried to help.

1990s

In Brief: “Manels” Before #MeToo

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

Cover Your Mouth: Controlling an Epidemic Through Hygiene

Century-old tips to prevent infection still make sense today.

1910s

Philanthropy’s Fight Against Tuberculosis in World War I France

What does it take to control the outbreak of a deadly disease?