Jan 01 1916$1,000,000 is appropriated for relief to Poland and Balkan countries to address a crisis of the food supply.
Jan 01 1916The Foundation continues its War Relief efforts with support to Belgian scholar refugees, as well as by funding the relocation and care of 500 Belgian refugee children.
Jan 01 1916The China Medical Board formally votes to establish an additional medical school in Shanghai through funds designated by The Rockefeller Foundation.
Jan 01 1915Malaria, like hookworm, attracts Foundation interest. Foundation Secretary Greene calls malaria “probably the heaviest handicap on the welfare and economic efficiency of the human race.” Beginning with pilot projects in Arkansas and Mississippi, the Foundation establishes research centers in 25 locations in Latin America, Europe, the Near East and Asia.
Jan 01 1915The Foundation launches its most concentrated public health effort, aimed at yellow fever. Writes President Raymond B. Fosdick, “On no disease in the long list of human afflictions did the Rockefeller Foundation put greater emphasis or a larger proportion of time and financial support than on yellow fever.” In this 30-year effort, the Foundation sends scientists throughout Africa and Latin America to conduct research and test new approaches. Six die in the effort.
Jan 01 1914The Foundation establishes the China Medical Board to develop a system of modern medicine in that country. A report on its recommendation notes, “The need is great beyond any anticipation.”
Jan 01 1914The Foundation begins a program of international fellowships to train scholars at the world’s leading universities at the post-doctoral level. Trustee Wickliffe Rose characterizes this fundamental commitment to the education of future leaders as “backing brains.”
Jan 01 1913On December 5, the Foundation's board makes its first grant: $100,000 to the American Red Cross to purchase property for its headquarters in Washington, DC. and for “a memorial to commemorate the services of the women of the United States in caring for the sick and wounded of the Civil War.”
Jan 01 1913Influenced by Abraham Flexner’s landmark study, “Medical Education in the United States and Canada,” the Foundation makes a grant to Johns Hopkins University to extend its model “full-time” system of basic medical education to clinical departments of medicine, surgery and pediatrics. Other specialties are added later.
Jan 01 1913Health becomes a Foundation priority at the first meeting of the board when Frederick Gates, longtime advisor to John D. Rockefeller, Sr., argues that “disease is the supreme ill in human life.”
