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.

Black and white image of a group of children on a cart that is decorated with them holding signs reading "sleep", "fresh air", "good food" "dirt" and "ignorance".
1900s 1910s

Photo Essay: The Rockefeller Sanitary Commission and the American South

Battling hookworm on rural farms laid the groundwork for a global public health system.

1970s

The Commonwealth Fund Brings Hospice Care to America

Care for the dying, not care for a cure, was a new idea in the 1970s.

1910s 1920s 1930s

The Long Road to the Yellow Fever Vaccine

The yellow fever vaccine developed in the 1930s has been used worldwide ever since. Creating it took years and cost several lives. Some thought it would never happen.