ABSTRACT
The development of American research universities during the 1920s and 1930s had depended on private funds for the support of academic research. While the Carnegie Corporation sculpted a postwar policy de novo, the Rockefeller Foundation Social Science Division had considerable continuity of leadership and program. The termination of the Behavioral Sciences Program (BSP) did not appreciably lessen Ford Foundation spending on the social sciences. Economics and international programs, in particular, received increasing support after 1957. American foundations, and particularly the Ford Foundation, affected the postwar development of research universities in three specific areas. They first supported the social sciences before appreciable federal resources were made available. They then attempted to strengthen the private research universities financially and academically so that those institutions could support high standards and thereby exert a positive influence on the academic system as a whole. Third, in a program, foundation support beginning in 1957 had a major impact on the stimulation of graduate education.
