Shot in the Arm for Public Health
Gerald Chan worked on a master’s degree and then a doctorate at the School of Public Health at Harvard in the 1970s. After that he pursued medical research for a Read more…
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Putting Psychiatry on the Map
As early as 1914 the Rockefeller Foundation had dabbled in what was then called “mental hygiene,” but in the 1930s the foundation became the driving force that built psychiatry into Read more…
Ronald McDonald Houses
When Fred Hill’s three-year-old was fighting leukemia, he and his family passed hours and days sleeping in chairs and living off vending-machine food as they kept vigil with her in Read more…
New York Dispensary
New York City clergyman John Rodgers was a classic charitable leader who honed his coalition-building skills as president of the Society for the Relief of Distressed Debtors, vice-chancellor of the Read more…
Leading a Charge Against Psychiatric Disorders
Ted Stanley was a pioneer in mental-health philanthropy. Back in the late-1980s the billionaire retailer founded the Stanley Medical Research Institute, which quickly became the biggest private backer in the Read more…
Rehabilitating Arlington
When Robert E. Lee sided with his state instead of his nation and took command of the Confederate army, the U.S. seized his family estate located on a hill overlooking Read more…
To Create a Mockingbird
When Harper Lee decided to try to make it as a writer, she relocated (like many before her and since) to New York City. When she got there she found Read more…
Suing for Reform
Philanthropists have been funding lawsuits as a way to improve public policies for more than a century. Booker T. Washington secretly financed the Giles v. Harris case back in 1903, Read more…
Supreme Assistance
The Searle Freedom Trust was founded in 1998 by Dan Searle with proceeds from the sale of the G. D. Searle pharmaceutical company. The foundation has been a major funder Read more…
A Bit of Diversity in the Faculty Lounge
The University of Colorado at Boulder is famous as a citadel of “progressivism,” for which it is sometimes referred to as the “Berkeley of the Rockies.” All faculty members, for Read more…
Avoiding Meltdowns of Public Pensions
The public-pension gap—the retiree and health benefits that have been promised to government workers but not funded—is the single gravest economic threat to the U.S. today. That is the position Read more…
Settling the Poor
In 1889, Jane Addams and Ellen Starr opened Hull House in Chicago, the nation’s first and most influential “settlement house”—a movement that aimed to link successful citizens to the poor, Read more…
Creation of the American Red Cross
Clara Barton became famous as the “angel of the battlefield” during the Civil War. Afterward she raised significant sums from the public for other good works, such as efforts to Read more…
Steering the U.S. Between Dependence and Neglect
In the post-Civil War years, America’s cities and the popularity of Social Darwinism both grew. The increasing anonymity of city life perhaps made it easier for Social Darwinists to assume Read more…
Voluntary Organizations Pioneer Life Insurance
Along with medical benefits and aid for orphaned children (see 1842 entry), another important socioeconomic protection provided to American workers by voluntary organizations was life insurance. For instance, the fraternal Read more…
Sanitary Commission Saves Lives in the Civil War
Once the Civil War began, charitable groups rushed to aid soldiers. The U.S. Sanitary Commission, a private relief agency founded in 1861 by a Unitarian minister, became nationally important. The Read more…
Education for the Deaf
In 1856, Amos Kendall, who had made his fortune helping Samuel Morse commercialize his telegraph patents, was touched by the plight of several deaf and blind children in the nation’s Read more…
Connecting Orphans to Families
Congregationalist minister Charles Loring Brace was emphatic that the thousands of miserable homeless children roaming the streets of nineteenth-century New York had the “same capacities” and the same importance “as Read more…
Fighting Poverty in a Personal Way
Methodical work to end poverty, rather than just treating its symptoms, was begun in America when the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor was created by some of Read more…
Fraternal Lodges Supply Health Benefits
During the century prior to the outbreak of World War II, the most important sources of sick benefits and health insurance in the U.S. were fraternal charities. The Independent Order Read more…