Editors’ Note: In the below post, HistPhil co-founder Stanley N. Katz brings the site’s ongoing discussion on philanthropy & inequality in dialogue with Kai Bird’s The Color of Truth: McGeorge Bundy and William Bundy: Brothers in Arms (Simon and Schuster, 1998). We have had a number of posts responding to Darren Walker’s recent articulation of … Continue reading
Author Archives: HistPhil
Do Foundations Co-opt Civil Rights Organizations?
Editors’ Note: With the below post, Megan Ming Francis continues HistPhil’s philanthropy & inequality forum. In the coming weeks, we’ll be moving on to our next forum on philanthropy & education. Please reach us if you’d like to contribute to either discussion. In 2015, protection of black bodies from state sanctioned violence remains an unmet challenge … Continue reading
Responding to the Forum on Philanthropy & Inequality
Editors’ Note: This past Friday, Hewlett Foundation President Larry Kramer reached out to co-editor Maribel Morey with some reactions to the ongoing forum on philanthropy & inequality. Below is a snapshot of their dialogue: KRAMER: Pablo Eisenberg’s response is the latest in what has been a line of surprisingly unhistorical and depressingly superficial posts. Most have … Continue reading
Responding to Benjamin Soskis’s ‘New Gospel of Wealth’
Editors’ Note: In the below post, Pablo Eisenberg responds to Benjamin Soskis’s recent contribution to the site’s Philanthropy & Inequality Forum, “Does Ford’s Announcement Signal a New Gospel of Wealth?” Ben Soskis has raised some searching questions about the potential of new philanthropic initiatives to attack income and wealth inequality and to make major changes in our … Continue reading
Responding to Leah Gordon’s FROM POWER TO PREJUDICE (2015)
Editors’ Note: This spring, we asked Daniel Geary to review the second chapter of Leah Gordon’s recently-published book, From Power to Prejudice: The Rise of Racial Individualism in Midcentury America (U. of Chicago Press, 2015). Titled “‘Data and Not Trouble’: The Rockefeller Foundation and the Social Science of Race Relations,” this second chapter places particular attention on the history of the … Continue reading
By Focusing on the Individual, Foundations Have Missed the Mark on Racism
Editors’ Note: The following post by Leah Gordon continues the site’s ongoing discussion on philanthropy & inequality. Here, Gordon presents some of the key arguments in her recently-published book, From Power to Prejudice: The Rise of Racial Individualism in Midcentury America (U. of Chicago Press, 2015). In a subsequent post, Daniel Geary reviews the second chapter … Continue reading
Does Ford’s Announcement Signal a New Gospel of Wealth?
Editors’ Note: HistPhil co-editor Benjamin Soskis continues the Philanthropy & Inequality Forum with the below post. One of the welcome, immediate consequences of the Ford Foundation’s recent announcement that it would focus its grant-making on eradicating inequality has been the flood of excellent writing on the subject of philanthropy and inequality that it has provoked—at HistPhil and elsewhere. I’ve … Continue reading
How Have Black Lives Mattered to American Philanthropy?
Editors’ Note: Karen Ferguson continues the philanthropy & inequality forum with the below post. She is the author of Top Down: The Ford Foundation, Black Power, and the Reinvention of Racial Liberalism. It’s telling that I wrote a book on the Ford Foundation, the largest philanthropy of post-World War II America, yet when I was invited … Continue reading
Beyond HistPhil: Discussing the Ford Foundation’s Global Inequality Focus
This week’s contributors to the Philanthropy & Inequality Forum—particularly Alice O’Connor and I—made mention of the Ford Foundation’s recent announcement to make global inequality its principal grantmaking focus. Before moving on with the forum on Monday with contributions by Karen Ferguson, Leah Gordon, and Daniel Geary, here is a list of other pieces from various … Continue reading
Is Ford’s Inequality Focus a Turning Point in the History of Philanthropy & Capitalism?
Editors’ Note: The philanthropy & inequality forum continues with this post by Alice O’Connor. Earlier contributors to this forum include HistPhil co-founder Maribel Morey and Faith Mitchell, president and CEO of Grantmakers in Health (GIH). There are some refreshingly forthright things about Ford Foundation President Darren Walker’s announcement of the foundation’s intention to make inequality the central focus of grantmaking under … Continue reading
Philanthropy is Capable of Addressing Inequality Effectively
Editors’ Note: Today, we begin a discussion on philanthropy and inequality with posts by HistPhil co-founder Maribel Morey and, below, by Faith Mitchell, president and CEO of Grantmakers in Health (GIH). James Crawford, my great-great grandfather, was an American taxpayer who could not vote or own property. His children were able to attend school only when … Continue reading
Will Ford’s Equality Initiative Be Radical or More of the Same?
Editors’ Note: Taking the Ford Foundation’s equality program as a starting point of conversation, HistPhil is hosting a forum on the past and present relationship between philanthropy and inequality in the United States. Today, we begin this discussion with posts by HistPhil co-editor Maribel Morey and then by Faith Mitchell, president and CEO of Grantmakers in … Continue reading
What does philanthropy look like?
On Monday, we will begin a discussion on philanthropy & inequality. In the meantime, though, here is a light-hearted call for suggestions on a “stock” image for HistPhil: You may have noticed that HistPhil has been using photos of our contributors to accompany posts. We thought that as we develop a community of scholars and practitioners all interested … Continue reading
Responding to Nick Kristof’s NYTimes Piece on the Gateses
Over the years I have tried to teach myself not to fire until I see the whites of their eyes, but yesterday’s New York Times column by Nick Kristof has pushed me over the edge for what it says about philanthropy—and how the media covers the sector. The column apparently follows an interview Bill and Melinda … Continue reading
What it means to think historically about philanthropy
Broadly conceived, HistPhil is dedicated to encouraging the philanthropic and nonprofit sectors to think historically about their work. What, precisely, this means in practice is still something of an open question. Two recent op-eds have helped me in approaching an answer. In The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Tom Watson celebrates the Ford Foundation’s recently announced commitment … Continue reading
What if Tocqueville had travelled to Prussia, instead of the U.S.?
Editors’ Note: Earlier this week, Olivier Zunz and Emma Saunders-Hastings discussed Alexis de Tocqueville’s views on philanthropy, with Saunders-Hastings arguing that the sector today is more aristocratic than democratic in the Tocquevillian sense. Responding to this ongoing conversation on Tocqueville’s observations of American life, Thomas Adam explains that philanthropy is not unique to democracies nor does it necessarily signal a … Continue reading
Is American Philanthropy Really Democratic in the Tocquevillian Sense?
Editors’ Note: In an earlier post, Olivier Zunz outlined Alexis de Tocqueville’s thoughts on associations and philanthropy. Here, Emma Saunders-Hastings argues that, while many individuals have noted Tocqueville’s remarks on philanthropy as highlighting the special place of philanthropy in American life, the sector today is more aristocratic than democratic in the Tocquevillian sense. Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America gives … Continue reading
Alexis de Tocqueville on Associations and Philanthropy
Editors’ Note: In the past weeks, HistPhil contributors such as Larry Kramer and Olivier Zunz have made mention of Alexis de Tocqueville in their respective Q&As. Here, Olivier Zunz goes into further detail on the nineteenth-century French scholar’s thoughts on associations and philanthropy. In a subsequent post, Emma Saunders-Hastings asks whether American philanthropy today is democratic in the … Continue reading
Peter Dobkin Hall (1946-2015)
Editors’ Note: On April 30, American philanthropic and nonprofit history lost one of its leading scholars. Peter Dobkin Hall’s work — ambitious, provocative, and meticulously researched — helped define the field, sparking debate and seeding lines of research inquiry, as did his leadership in organizations and institutions such as ARNOVA, Yale’s Program on Nonprofit Organizations, and … Continue reading
What I Shared With Peter Dobkin Hall
Editors’ Note: On April 30, American philanthropic and nonprofit history lost one of its leading scholars, Peter Dobkin Hall. Today, HistPhil offers reflections on the man and his work from two of Hall’s colleagues. The first tribute is by David C. Hammack, followed by this second one by George E. Marcus. Another moving tribute to Hall, from legal scholar … Continue reading
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