Topic: Technology

Timeline: American Philanthropy, Agriculture, and the Challenges of Feeding the World
From demonstration farms launched when farming was still unmechanized to confronting climate change in the twenty-first century, American philanthropy has played a key role in shaping and supporting efforts to lift rural communities out of poverty through agriculture.


Building the Hale Telescope
A 20-year-long project, funded by Rockefeller philanthropies, took technologies enabling astronomy to an unprecedented scale.

“For Initiative and for Experiment”: The International Education Board, 1923-1938
Incorporated in 1923 with funding from John D. Rockefeller, Jr., the IEB built a major scientific network in Europe and the US in only five years.


“A Roomful of Brains”: Early Advances in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence
At midcentury, Rockefeller Foundation staffers hoped new technologies might find solutions to complex problems.

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.

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.

War of the Worlds: Rockefeller Philanthropies, Disinformation, and Media Literacy in the 1930s
Orson Welles’s 1938 radio performance of The War of the Worlds prompted a foundation to explore issues of media literacy and fake news.