Jan 01 1952A $112,000 grant enables Dorothy Thomas and Simon Kuznets to undertake the first analysis of US population change, capital formation and economic activity.
Jan 01 1952John D. Rockefeller III becomes chair of the board of trustees and serves until 1971. Dean Rusk becomes president and serves until 1961.
Jan 01 1951Max Theiler of the Foundation’s Virus Laboratory in New York City wins the Nobel Prize in medicine and physiology for developing the yellow fever vaccine.
Jan 01 1950The Foundation begins its support of historical research in areas of contemporary significance. Over the next decade, it will spend nearly $7 million to support research, including interdisciplinary and interpretive work including that done by the scholars Toynbee, Braudel and Barraclough and the editing and publication of papers of American statesmen: Hamilton, Madison, Lincoln and Wilson.
Jan 01 1950A Foundation supported cooperative agricultural development program, similar to that developed in Mexico, begins in Colombia under Dr. Lewis M. Roberts.
Jan 01 1950The Foundation initiates broad-scale support for research in genetics with grants to establish centers and build entire departments at the California Institute of Technology, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Chicago, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, Columbia University, universities in Indiana, Texas, Wisconsin and many locations abroad.
Jan 01 1949Erwin Chargaff, a biochemist at Columbia University, announces the "Chargaff Ratios”—This work proves critical to the 1953 Nobel Prize-winning description of the structure of DNA by James D. Watson and Francis Crick that describes the structure of DNA. Chargaff began receiving Foundation support in 1933 as an Austrian refugee fleeing from Nazi persecution.
Jan 01 1949The Foundation launches a 12-year program in area studies, designed to promote research leading to “increased understanding of one culture by members of another.” Universities in the US, Canada, Great Britain, France, Turkey, Germany, India and Japan receive grants.
Jan 01 1948The Foundation divisions of social sciences, health and natural sciences combine to fund the first effort to comprehensively survey socio-economic conditions in developing countries. The work is carried out on the island of Crete in order to develop techniques and procedures applicable to developing areas where an interdisciplinary approach is appropriate.
