Jan 01 1944The first grant of an eventual $2 million total is made to develop Princeton’s Office of Population Research, which demonstrates connections between population and development in the developing world.
Jan 01 1943A Mexican agricultural program designed to increase food crop production through research and development is inaugurated on-site in cooperation with the Mexican Department of Agriculture.
Jan 01 1942A Foundation grant supports the first major study to determine the effects of forced resettlement of the Japanese population as a US war measure.
Jan 01 1942The importance of regional cultures in the US is highlighted in a program assisting the Texas State Historical Association in carrying out studies of the Southwest, the University of Wisconsin in studying the development of that state, and the Huntington Library in Pasadena for studies on the culture of the Pacific Southwest, and others.
Jan 01 1942The complete card catalog of the two-million-volume Library of Congress is reproduced by an early form of photolithography and made available to 50 leading libraries of the world, from Australia to Vatican City.
Jan 01 1941The Rockefeller Foundation supports developmental work on the electron microscope, then underwrites electron microscopy laboratories at several universities.
Jan 01 1941A decade of support for language studies, guided largely by the American Council of Learned Societies, culminates in the development of the methodology of the US Army language training program. The Foundation funds translations, grammars, dictionaries and bibliographies.
Jan 01 1941Three American scholars—E. C. Stakman, Richard Bradfield and Paul C. Magelsdorf—study the possibility of developing an agricultural program to raise the yield of Mexican agriculture, an idea first proposed to Foundation President Fosdick by then-US Vice President Henry Wallace. That research eventually leads to what becomes known as the Green Revolution, which helped end widespread hunger in Latin America, India and Southeast Asia.
Jan 01 1940The Foundation supports work to improve the design of the Van de Graaff accelerator and makes a grant to Dr. Ernest Lawrence for research on a 154-inch cyclotron—two tools of physics used to study the nuclei of atoms.
Jan 01 1940The Boston Symphony Orchestra, conducted by musical titan Serge Koussevitzky, receives $60,000 to establish the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood. “The significance of this plan,” reads the proposal, “lies in its national character and in its treatment of music as a living art.”
