ABSTRACT
Turbulent times. With this chapter the reader is brought into the 20th century and introduced to the influence that a number of events of that period had on the still-growing, but not-yet-mature American nonprofit arena. Among these are World War I, a conflict which not only forced America onto the world stage, but also began to move the nonprofit arena away from its provincialism and toward a broader vision; The Great Depression, an event during which American charities largely got out of the business of relief and first became the service organizations that they mainly are today; and World War II, during which the government exerted unprecedented control over the charitable sector. These events teed up the sector for the prosperity of the 50s, while ironically leaving it unprepared for the challenges and changes of the Kennedy–Johnson years and the 1960s.
