The Rockefeller and Carnegie foundations played a central role in the structuring of eugenics in the United States and worldwide between 1902 and 1952, before operating a transition towards 'population control' after 1945. The General Education Board (1902-1964, $180M+ distributed) restructured the American education system. The Bureau of Social Hygiene (1911-1934) oversaw research on prostitution and social hygiene. The International Health Division (1913-1951) deployed public health programs in 80+ countries. The Population Council (1952) orchestrated the transition from eugenics to demographic control. The Reece Commission (1954) attempted to investigate these foundations, without follow-up. These institutions represent the most direct historical precedent of contemporary foundations (Gates, Soros, Ford) that fund programs with global social ambitions.

PHILANTHROPIC FOUNDATIONS AND SOCIAL CONTROL

Herodote Note -- Session BS-010

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1. THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTION AND EUGENICS (1902-1939) [ESTABLISHED]

Carnegie Institution of Washington (1902)

Founded by Andrew Carnegie with a $10M donation (increased to $22M), the Carnegie Institution directly funded eugenics research:

• 1904: Funds the Station for Experimental Evolution at Cold Spring Harbor (CSH), directed by Charles B. Davenport (1866-1944).
• 1910: Davenport founds the Eugenics Record Office (ERO) at CSH, co-funded by Mary Harriman (widow of railroad magnate E.H. Harriman). Harry H. Laughlin (1880-1943) is superintendent.
• 1922: Laughlin publishes the 'Model Eugenical Sterilization Law', which would serve as the model for 30 American states AND the Nazi sterilization law of 1933 (Gesetz zur Verhutung erbkranken Nachwuchses).
• 1924: Laughlin provides expert testimony to Congress for the Immigration Restriction Act (Johnson-Reed Act), which drastically reduces immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe.
• 1936: Laughlin receives an honorary doctorate from the University of Heidelberg for his contribution to the 'science of racial hygiene'.
• 1939: The Carnegie Institution closes the ERO on the recommendation of an evaluation committee that judges its work scientifically invalid.

Ref.: Garland E. Allen, 'The Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor, 1910-1939' (Osiris, 1986); Edwin Black, 'War Against the Weak' (2003).

2. THE ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION AND INTERNATIONAL EUGENICS (1913-1936) [ESTABLISHED]

Foundation (1913)

John D. Rockefeller Sr. creates the Rockefeller Foundation on May 14, 1913 (New York State charter). Initial endowment: $100M.

Funding of German eugenics

Documented chronology:

• 1922: First funding to German eugenics researchers
• 1925-1935: Approximately $3M distributed to German eugenics research, including:
  • May 1926: $250,000 to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Psychiatry (Munich), directed by Ernst Rudin (future architect of Nazi sterilization)
  • 1927: $317,000 for the construction of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics (Berlin-Dahlem), directed by Eugen Fischer (author of 'Die Rehobother Bastards', 1913, study of mixed-race people in Namibia)
  • Funding to Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer (director of the KWI Anthropology 1942-1948, supervisor of Josef Mengele at Auschwitz)
• 1936: Honors $655,000 commitments to the KWI AFTER the Nuremberg Laws and the expulsion of Jewish scientists

Ref.: Stefan Kuhl, 'The Nazi Connection: Eugenics, American Racism, and German National Socialism' (Oxford, 2002); Paul Weindling, 'The Rockefeller Foundation and German Biomedical Sciences' (1990).

CAVEAT: The Rockefeller Foundation was simultaneously funding hundreds of progressive projects (public health, disease eradication, scholarships for refugee scientists). The eugenics funding, while real and substantial, represents only a fraction of its activities. Reducing the Rockefeller Foundation to its eugenics role would be a historical distortion.

3. THE GENERAL EDUCATION BOARD (1902-1964) [ESTABLISHED]

Foundation and mission

Created in 1902 by John D. Rockefeller Sr. with an initial donation of $1M, incorporated by an Act of Congress on January 12, 1903. Stated objective: 'the promotion of education within the United States of America, without distinction of race, sex, or creed'. The Rockefeller family would ultimately give more than $180M to the GEB.

Documented activities

1. Education in the South: The GEB was one of the first funders of African-American education in the post-Reconstruction South. It worked with the Peabody Fund, the Slater Fund, and the Jeanes Fund. But the education offered was overwhelmingly VOCATIONAL -- professional and agricultural training, not classical or scientific education.

2. National education reform: The GEB deployed 'field agents' in school systems, funded teacher training, and promoted the consolidation of rural schools into larger districts. Schools accepting the funding also accepted SUPERVISION -- inspectors, curriculum consultants, administrators trained under the GEB's aegis.

3. Agriculture: Created the system of 'county agents' linking agricultural experiment stations to field practices. Contributed to the eradication of hookworm in the South.

Historical critique

The Reece report (1954) and critical historians such as Raymond B. Fosdick (who, however, wrote the foundation's official history) note that the GEB favored:

• Empiricism and team research at the expense of individual thought
• Major universities at the expense of small colleges
• Vocational education at the expense of liberal education
• A utilitarian vision of education (training productive workers, not critical citizens)

ASSESSMENT: The GEB objectively improved education in the American South (schools, teacher training, disease eradication). The criticism that it 'formatted' American education to serve industrial interests is [PROBABLE] for the vocational dimension, [HYPOTHESIS] for deliberate mind control.

Ref.: Raymond B. Fosdick, 'Adventure in Giving: The Story of the General Education Board' (1962); NCpedia, 'General Education Board'.

4. THE BUREAU OF SOCIAL HYGIENE (1911-1934) [ESTABLISHED]

Foundation

John D. Rockefeller Jr. (1874-1960) serves on a grand jury in 1910 investigating 'white slavery' (forced prostitution) in New York. He emerges convinced of the need for a 'scientific' approach to vice.

On March 22, 1911, the 'Committee of Three' -- Rockefeller Jr., Paul Warburg (banker, future architect of the Federal Reserve), and Starr Murphy (Rockefeller's lawyer) -- meets. The name 'Bureau of Social Hygiene' is adopted in October 1911, formalized in 1913.

Activities

• 1911-1928: Focus on prostitution, vice control, and relations with the police. George J. Kneeland directs the field investigation in New York, publishing 'Commercialized Prostitution in New York City' (1913).
• 1913: Abraham Flexner (whose 1910 report on medical education had already been funded by Carnegie) publishes 'Prostitution in Europe' under the Bureau's aegis.
• 1928: Reorganization. The Bureau turns toward criminology, penal reform, and narcotics control.
• 1934: Dissolution.

Significance

The Bureau of Social Hygiene illustrates the logic of scientific management of 'deviant' social behaviors by philanthropic elites. The term 'social hygiene' itself is at the boundary between public health and eugenics -- 'racial hygiene' (Rassenhygiene) is the German term for eugenics.

Ref.: Rockefeller Archive Center, Bureau of Social Hygiene records (FA060); Philanthropy Roundtable, 'Social Hygiene Movement'.

5. THE INTERNATIONAL HEALTH DIVISION (1913-1951) [ESTABLISHED]

Chronology

• June 27, 1913: Creation of the International Health Commission (IHC)
• 1916: Renamed International Health Board (IHB)
• 1927: Renamed International Health Division (IHD)
• 1951: Dissolution

Activities

The IHD deployed public health programs in more than 80 countries:

• Eradication of hookworm in 52 countries in ten years
• Campaigns against tuberculosis, yellow fever, malaria (90% of budget)
• Training of medical personnel
• Construction of schools of public health (Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Toronto, London, Sao Paulo)

'Population control' dimension

[PROBABLE] The IHD also collected massive demographic data in the countries where it operated. This data fed the reflections on 'overpopulation' that would lead to the Population Council. The boundary between public health and demographic control is blurred in the archives.

Ref.: John Farley, 'To Cast Out Disease: A History of the International Health Division of the Rockefeller Foundation' (Oxford, 2004).

6. THE POPULATION COUNCIL (1952-present) [ESTABLISHED]

Foundation

On November 7, 1952, John D. Rockefeller III founds the Population Council with an initial budget of $250,000 (personal donation). Frederick H. Osborn (1889-1981) is named president.

Osborn's profile

Osborn is THE pivot between eugenics and demographic control:

• Founding member of the American Eugenics Society (AES)
• Author of 'Preface to Eugenics' (1940)
• Chief of education and information of the US Army during WWII
• Deputy delegate of the US to the UN after the war
• President of the AES (1946-1952), then of the Population Council (1952-1959)
• Treasurer of the AES (1956-1969)

Osborn himself theorized the transition: 'The name [eugenics] was changed because it became evident that changes of a eugenic nature would be made for reasons other than eugenics, and that tying a eugenic label on them would more often hinder than help their adoption.'

This quote is the KEY to the eugenics -> population control continuity. Osborn does not say that eugenics is abandoned; he says that the LABEL is abandoned because it became counterproductive.

Strategic transition

The Population Council orchestrated a three-stage transition:

1. 1952-1960: Demographic research, first family planning programs
2. 1960-1970: The Rockefeller Foundation adopts its own 'population' program. The Population Council becomes a regular grantee.
3. 1970+: Massive family planning programs in developing countries (Asia, Africa, Latin America). Development of contraceptive technologies (IUD, Norplant). Introduction of the abortion pill (RU-486/mifepristone) in the United States.

Assessment

[ESTABLISHED]: The institutional continuity AES -> Population Council is documented by the SAME people, the SAME offices, the SAME donors. [PROBABLE]: The eugenics motivation persisted under the guise of 'population control', at least in the founding generation. [HYPOTHESIS]: Family planning programs in the Third World were motivated by racist eugenics behind the demographic facade.

CAVEAT: Family planning has ALSO benefited millions of women by giving them control over their fertility. Reducing all population control to eugenics is an error. The reality is that TWO motivations often coexisted within the same institutions.

Ref.: Matthew Connelly, 'Fatal Misconception: The Struggle to Control World Population' (Harvard, 2008); Rockefeller Archive Center; EBSCO Research Starters.

7. THE REECE COMMISSION (1952-1954) [ESTABLISHED]

Context

Two Congressional commissions investigated the foundations:

• Cox Commission (1952, E.E. Cox, D-Ga): general conclusions, little impact
• Reece Commission (1953-54, B. Carroll Reece, R-Tenn): more thorough investigation

Lead investigator: Norman Dodd

Norman Dodd, a former banker, is named research director. According to his testimony (controversial, recorded in 1982 by G. Edward Griffin):

• Rowan Gaither, president of the Ford Foundation, allegedly told him that the foundations operated under White House directives to 'alter life in the United States so that it could be comfortably merged with the Soviet Union'
• Kathryn Casey, tasked with examining the minutes of the Carnegie Endowment, allegedly had a nervous breakdown after reading documents about the promotion of war as an instrument of social change

WARNING: This Dodd testimony is a single uncorroborated source and must be treated as [LEAD], not fact.

Report conclusions

The majority report (3 Republicans) concludes that:

1. Certain large foundations directly supported 'subversion' -- 'the process of undermining some of our vitally protective concepts and principles'
2. The concentrated power of foundations, even benevolent, threatens democratic government
3. Foundations promote empiricism, centralized team research, large universities over small colleges, moral relativism, internationalism, and social engineering

The 2 Democrats did NOT sign the report and severely criticized it.

Fate of the report

Published amid the McCarthy censure, the Reece report attracted almost no attention. McCarthy's fall discredited anything 'smelling of red-hunting'. The report was relegated to oblivion.

ASSESSMENT: The Reece report contains valid observations (concentration of power, influence on education) mixed with exaggerations and McCarthyism. It is a PERIOD DOCUMENT more than a reliable investigation. [PROBABLE] for certain structural observations, [HYPOTHESIS] for the most dramatic conclusions.

Ref.: U.S. House Select Committee Report (1954); Internet Archive ('Special Committee to Investigate Tax Exempt Foundations').