our cities tour staff recently traveled to trenton, new jersey, to learn about its rich history. learn more about trenton and other stops on our tour at g/cities tour. you are watching american history tv, all weekend, every weekend on c-span 3. announcer: "american history tv" was at the organization of american historians annual meeting where he spoke with barbara shubinski about how the rockefellers philanthropic mission started and how it has changed over the years. interview is about 15 minutes. host: what led you to study american philanthropy. barbara: i did my phd at the university of iowa. alongside graduate school, i had a number of jobs in what we call the third sector or nonprofit organizations. i'm familiar with being a grant seeker and being aware there is a whole philanthropic structure that underwrote or funded or

supported what we would call nonprofit or third sector work in the u.s. as i was finishing up my degree, there is this sort of job call for a postdoctoral fellowship at the rockefeller archive center. i did not intend to study american philanthropy, but it turned out all my other experiences in nonprofit administration, environmental education, historic preservation made sense once i saw those records at the rockefeller archive center and the other side of where the funding and that sort of design level of thinking came from. a happy accident. host: when did the rockefellers begin their philanthropy? barbara: the rockefeller family begins formal philanthropy in the late 19th century. they have a strong northern baptist belief system and faith, so they were always doing typing, charities, and giving back. but this thing we call philanthropy is really kind of a

late 19th century and 20th-century phenomenon as distinct from charity. i would say that kicks off first with john d rockefeller senior's underwriting at the university of chicago in the late 19th century. that he starts -- the first thing that could be looked at as a foundation, his first thing -- about 1902. let's call it the turn of the 20th century. reporter: do they contribute domestically as well as internationally? barbara: absolutely. when you get to the bigger philanthropies -- the general education board was a u.s. central command agreement to improve public education -- u.s. centered philanthropy to improve education. we would think of it as a large multipurpose private in doubt philanthropic foundation.

that they always intended to be both domestic and international from the get-go. some of that is because standard oil was a global corporation. they were always thinking outside national line. reporter: how do they choose what causes they would support? barbara: all they do at first was that they wanted to benefit the well-being of mankind. it is the broadest mission statement of all time. but when the board of trustees get together, there are a few threads that make a lot of sense for them to go forward with, and part because they are also invested, but also because of that moment in american history. the want to avoid what they call scatteration. the first two things they settle on our public health and medical education. later they will add more, but that is really the beginning.

some of this comes out of a philosophy that says take problems you know are solvable that aren't solved yet, but aren't a huge mystery, either. for example, another related philanthropy that ends up feeding into the rockefeller foundation is the rockefeller commission -- sanitary commission for the eradication of hookworms. they picked hookworm as a disease because it affects the entire u.s. south, and at the same time it is quite fixable. the medicine is fairly simple. hygienic measures are going to make a difference. they like to take big problems that are also possible to make progress in. reporter: the u.s. enters world war i. does is impact the rockefeller's effort? barbara: it does. they really want to avoid scatteration and work on these root causes. they want to get at social problems for a channel that is

in giving aid or relief, which really is more like what charity would be. to want to kind of get under what is causing the social problems, hence the work on public health. while world war i requires such a huge amount of direct relief work, and they end up feeling compelled to do that, in a way, they are committed to doing it. they are committed to the necessity of it. a kind of sidetracks them a little. in the end they end up giving more world -- more war relief and world war i the entire federal government. and the end, they are like, let's get back to our original purpose. reporter: how do their goals change overtime? barbara: rockefeller foundation goals topic changes based on need. if you look in the early 20th century, there are very few mechanisms for public health delivery. they help create model systems and inspire the government to

take them over. they helped institute a public health apparatus. once that is done, there needs start changing. then they look at things like getting the hard sciences installed in universities and pushing research forward in the bench science areas. then they do more humanities funding. and then world war ii and the depression make them question the need for social insurance and they become involved in the social security act from a research perspective. world war ii changes everything and they start to realize that health is not as simple as it might have been in terms of what to do about it earlier in the century, where it would be more focused on disease eradication, and now involves food resources, population, family planning, we would kind of now call the development enterprise. reporter: -- they are all responding to what the world context is like to find that next problem they think needs attacking first in order to benefit humanity broadly.

reporter: your book is titled "democracy and philanthropy, the rockefeller foundation and the american experiment." how do the rockefellers see their efforts connected to democracy? barbara: that the very interesting question. is especially interesting now because in the foundation world right now, you find a lot of language about democracy and society -- and civil society. you would have heard the rockefeller family and philanthropy using phrases that now would be perceived as christian democratic values. and has a whole new meeting in late 20's and three u.s. come about at the time indicated a commitment to international understanding, to cross-cultural understanding, to a kind of liberal ecumenical progressive viewpoint. to them, the values they would have called christian democratic values are those of a quality, -- equality, a fair chance to

have input in the systems that you live under, exchange between cultural groups that lead to greater peace, that type of thing. reporter: what sort of efforts to the rockefellers invest in these days? barbara: rockefeller is a very multifaceted thing. the family is quite a bit larger because we are 5, 6, 7 generations in. the family engages in personal philanthropic activities. there is a family office that often helps coordinate that kind of work. there are smaller funds that various family members have set up. david rockefeller just passed away recently it had something called the dr fund. there are so many philanthropies i couldn't even name the. the major one that might come to people's mind are the rockefeller foundation. the rockefeller foundation is quite separate from the family and has been from the beginning. it often will have a family member of the board, but it is not a family philanthropy.

the rockefeller brothers fund is a family philanthropy with the board comprised of family members as well as nonfamily members. they work on democracy, civil society, the environment, climate change. they also have a strong arts and culture program. they also are doing work on peace building and peacemaking, particularly in troubled areas of the world such as the middle east. the rockefeller foundation just got a new president. until the recently, their tagline has been "resilience." it remains to be seen whether they stick with that are taken new direction under new leadership. reporter: as far as all ssris -- how they have a limited their efforts, has that changed over time? barbara: they often would work through operating programs where they are hiring and paying the field staff to get out there. that would be true of public health emulator agriculture

work, which is credited as something which has been dubbed the green revolution. they paid the salaries of scientists and researchers. they had field offices. and designed the research and dissemination program, the demonstrations, the extension work. all that wrapped up in the 1980's. they've also been grantmakers, but in the 1980's they become predominantly a grantmaking foundation rather than an operating foundation. and the 21st century there are these new hybrid forms of working with grantees who are like consultants who might be doing the operations for a problem that the foundation has identified. by the foundation itself isn't doing those operating programs. yet it is a little more than a one-time, one-off grant. it is an investment into an initiative over a number of years. that is a new form we are

looking at now. reporter: what sort of sources do you use for this research? barbara: unlucky to be able to use primary sources for this research because the rockefeller archive center houses the collections of the rockefeller family, rockefeller philanthropy, rockefeller foundation, and a host of other third sector and nongovernmental, nonprofit organizations and foundations such as the social science research, the ford foundation records, the population council, the agricultural development council. it is about 80 different foundation or nonprofit related collections, as well as the papers of individuals associated with those organizations. i sit everyday at my office on a treasure trove of primary source material. reporter: how do you decide what to look at? barbara: a great question. it depends. sometimes i have research driven by a request from one of the

organizations, the foundations that house their collections with us. we have a deal with them that they are benefited at the archive center by an independent operating foundation. we are not appended to any of these foundations. one thing they get from us is a very high level of service for an in-house research service. sometimes that will drive it. often anniversary projects will drive it. my book which i am a co-author of with other people is part of a series that the rockefeller foundation put out in honor of its centennial in 2013. sometimes it is driven by the donor organizations themselves. sometimes it is driven by an external interest. we maintain a really strong professional association with other scholars. places like the oah. sometimes we all get together and have an idea, like, let's look at foundation funding for scholars during times of war or political unrest.

that we pulled together a conference, and more people than just me are doing research and papers that come from a number of different perspectives. it kind of goes back and forth. a lot of it works like scholarship would work in a university. but then a lot of it works like the congressional record service where your donors call up and say, hey, we need to know more about this. can you tell us more? reporter: barbara shubinksi, thanks for speaking with us. >> you are watching american history tv, all weekend every weekend on c-span 3. to join the conversation, like a sigus on facebook. >> tonight on afterwards, journalist stuart taylor examines campus sexual assault policies and his book. an taylor is interviewed by

editor in chief of the national law journal and legal times. >> share for the viewers what's your general thesis that we're looking at? what are we going to be reading about? >> the gist of it is is there's a huge myth that's taken root that there is an epidemic of campus rape, there is a culture where it is encouraged and condoned, even by the administrators. that's out of control and its increasing. and is worse on campus that it is off-campus and that it requires completely demolishing all due process and the perception of innocence for the accused people, 99% of whom are male. and that is not an asset. this comes from extreme feminists. male haiting extreme ting extrememale haitin feminist. and pushed forward by the obama

administration. >> watch afterwards tonight on c-span 2's book tv. >> next on american history tv, c.r. gibbs highlights the achievements of several african-american women of the civil war. focusing on individuals he says have been overlooked. mr. gibbs tells stories of black women who worked as soldiers and spies as well as women who were abolitionists on the underground railroad. this hour-long event took place at the african-american civil war memorial and it was or that organized by the historical society of washington dc. [applause] >> good afternoon, everyone. i certainly want to thank frank for his gracious introduction. and thank you all for coming this afternoon. the official title of the presentation is dangers, african-americans of the civil war.