In "Private Wealth and Public Life," historian Judith Sealander
analyzes the role played by private philanthropic foundations in
shaping public policy during the early years of this century.
Focusing on foundation-sponsored attempts to influence policy in
the areas of education, social welfare, and public health, she
addresses significant misunderstandings about the place of
philanthropic foundations in American life.
Between 1903 and 1932, fewer than a dozen philanthropic
organizations controlled most of the hundreds of millions of
dollars given to various causes. Among these, Sealander finds,
seven foundations attempted to influence public social policy in
significant ways--four were Rockefeller philanthropies, joined
later by the Russell Sage, Rosenwald, and Commonwealth Fund
foundations. Challenging the extreme views of foundations either as
benevolent forces for social change or powerful threats to
democracy, Sealander offers a more subtle understanding of
foundations as important players in a complex political
environment. The huge financial resources of some foundations
bought access, she argues, but never complete control. Occasionally
a foundation's agenda became public policy; often it did not.
Whatever the results, the foundations and their efforts spurred the
emergence of an American state with a significantly expanded
social-policy-making role.
Drawing on a wealth of archival materials, much of it
unavailable or overlooked until now, Sealander examines issues that
remain central to American political life. Her topics include
vocational education policy, parent education, juvenile
delinquency, mothers' pensions and public aid to impoverished
children, anti-prostitution efforts, sex research, and publicly
funded recreation. "Foundation philanthropy's legacy for domestic
social policy," she writes, "raises a point that should be
emphasized repeatedly by students of the policy process: Rarely is
just one entity a policy's sole author; almost always policies in
place produced unintended consequences."
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