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"This book presents new scholarship about foundations such as Ford, Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Russell Sage, their history, and their impact on American society. The essays in the first three parts of the book look at the diverse and multiple ways in which foundations have contributed to American society: as organizations, they help put into action the goals of many social movements; as cultural agents, they help shift attention to some of the most pressing issues facing the American public. The last part of the book focuses on researching and writing foundation history."--BOOK JACKET.
List of contents
Introduction: Foundations in History: New Possibilities for Scholarship and Practice /Ellen Condliffe Lagemann
Part I. Foundations as Organizations
1. Resolving the Dilemmas of Democratic Governance: The Historical Development of Trusteeship in America, 1636-1996 /Peter Dobkin Hall
2. Foundations in the American Polity, 1900-1950 /David Hammack
3. Private Foundations as Public Institutions: Regulation, Professionalization, and the Redefinition of Organized Philanthropy /Peter Frumkin
Part II. Case Studies in Early Twentieth Century Foundation Philanthropy
4. Constructing a New Political Economy: Philanthropy, Institution-Building, and Consumer Capitalism in the Early Twentieth Century /Meg Jacobs
5. Selling the Public on Public Health: The Commonwealth and Milbank Health Demonstrations and the Meaning of Community Health Education /Elizabeth Toon
6. Constructing the Normal Child: The Rockefeller Philanthropies and the Science of Child Development, 1918-1940 /Julia Grant
7. Mary van Kleeck of the Russell Sage Foundation: Religion, Social Science, and the Ironies of Parasitic Modernity /Guy Alchon
Part III: Foundations and Recent Social Memory
8. The Ford Foundation and Philanthropic Activism in the 1960s /Alice O'Connor
9. The Ford Foundation's War on Poverty: Private Philanthropy and Race Relations in New York City, 1948-1968 /Gregory K. Raynor
10. Grassrooting the System: The Development and Impact of Social Movement Philanthropy, 1953-1990 /J. Craig Jenkins and Abigail Halcli
11. When Grantees Become Grantors: Accountability, Democracy, and Social Movement Philanthropy /Susan Ostrander
12. The Ford Foundation and Women's Studies in American Higher Education: Seeds of Change /Rosa Proietto
Part IV: Writing the History of Foundations
13. Going for Broke: The Historian's Commitment to Philanthropy /Barry D. Karl
14. In Search of the Ford Foundation /Richard Magat
15. The History of Philanthropy as Life-History: A Biographer's View of Mrs. Russell Sage /Ruth Hutchinson Crocker
16. Local Philanthropy Matters: Pressing Issues for Research and Practice /William S. McKersie
17. The Future of Foundation History: Suggestions for Research and Practice /Lucy Bernholz
Bibliography: Recent Writings about Foundations in History /Susan Kastan
Contributors
Index
About the author
ELLEN CONDLIFFE LAGEMANN is professor in the Center for the Study of American Culture and Education at New York University.
Summary
The history of foundations is attracting scholars from across the social disciplines and constitutes some of the interesting and productive research in history and the social sciences. This book presents examples of work about foundations and their histories and offers the opportunity to ponder the problems and possibilities of foundation history.
