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{"value"=>"18811", "type"=>"local_mss"}
{"value"=>"b19879057", "type"=>"local_b"}
{"value"=>"MssCol 18811", "type"=>"local_call"}
- unitdate
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{"value"=>"1906-2010", "type"=>"inclusive", "normal"=>"1906/2010"}
{"value"=>"1960-1996", "type"=>"bulk", "normal"=>"1960/1996"}
- date_inclusive_start
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1906
- date_inclusive_end
-
2010
- keydate
-
1906
- date_start
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1906
- date_end
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2010
- unittitle
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{"value"=>"Century Foundation records"}
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- repository
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{"id"=>"MSS", "value"=>"Manuscripts and Archives Division"}
- abstract
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{"value"=>"The Century Foundation, established in 1906 as the Cooperative League and renamed the Twentieth Century Fund in 1922, is a non-profit research institution that supports the study of political and economic issues in the United States. Since its inception, the organization has funded research projects—primarily books and reports, but also pamphlets, papers, committees, task forces, conferences, seminars, and educational films—with the aim of influencing and improving public policy. The Century Foundation records, dating from 1906 to 2010, contain correspondence, reports, minutes, memorandum, manuscripts, and publications that document the work of trustees, staff, and funded project directors. The records provide extensive documentation of projects conceived of, funded by, and associated with the organization, the bulk of which date from 1960 to the mid-1990s. These projects, and the development of the foundation's areas of study, track the evolving focus of progressive political thought and economic policy in the 20th century United States."}
- prefercite
-
{"value"=>"<p>Century Foundation records, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library.</p>"}
- origination
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{"value"=>"Century Foundation", "type"=>"corpname", "role"=>"creator"}
- bioghist
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{"value"=>"<p>The Century Foundation is a non-profit research institution headquartered in New York City. The foundation supports the study of political and economic issues in the United States through the funding of research projects—primarily books and reports, but also pamphlets, papers, committees, task forces, conferences, seminars, and educational films—with the goal of analyzing and improving public policy. While the Century Foundation has supported research on the American economy and its effects on the democracy since its founding, funded authors and task forces have also examined issues surrounding the media, education policy, social justice, the electoral system, social security, and foreign policy.</p> <p>The organization was founded as The Cooperative League by entrepreneur Edward Filene. With his brother Lincoln, Edward Filene ran the William Filene's Sons company, responsible for Filene's department store and Filene's Basement located in downtown Boston, Massachusetts. The Cooperative League formed in 1906, and its earliest purpose was to study economic and industrial issues. Through the organization's work, Filene hoped to directly support the establishment of credit unions in the United States. The Cooperative League was headed by a board of three trustees: the Filene brothers and Louis Brandeis, an attorney and later Supreme Court justice. The board met annually, though there is scant documentation of its earliest years or the specific types of activities the board pursued prior to the 1920s.</p> <p>In 1919, the Cooperative League was incorporated in Massachusetts, and the headquarters remained in Boston until the organization's move to New York City in 1931. Edward Filene transferred 4,172 shares of stock in his company to the organization in 1922 to create its endowment. Concurrent with the stock transfer, Filene renamed the group the Twentieth Century Fund. The organization's newly defined purpose, as stated in its charter, was \"the improvement of economic, industrial, civic, and educational conditions\" by means of study, research, publication, and the support of charitable institutions. Edward Filene's vision for the Twentieth Century Fund was one heavily rooted in progressivism—he aimed for the foundation's work to propose effective, constructive, forward-thinking policy solutions through books, reports, and pamphlets that were intellectually accessible to government policy makers and the general public rather than strictly an academic audience. New trustees gradually joined to increase the membership of the board to nine members by the late 1920s, including Bruce Bliven, editor of <span class=\"title\">The New Republic</span>, and Henry S. Dennison, a Massachusetts manufacturer.</p> <p>During the 1920s, while the fund ran with only the support of trustees, Filene, and his secretary, its efforts were concentrated on providing grant assistance to outside research committees and organizations. The fund provided the sole source of funding for the Credit Union National Extension Bureau, and slowly expanded to grant financial support for other organizations working for issues that aligned with Filene's business interests and liberal beliefs, such as the International Management Institute, the Committee on the Costs of Medical Care, and the National League of Women Voters. In 1928, the fund hired Evans Clark as the first director. Clark undertook the organization's first significant internally-supported research project, American Foundations and Their Fields, to determine which fields of study were supported and served by existing philanthropic foundations in the United States. The foundations survey showed that the study of economics received a disproportionately small amount of funding from American foundations, leading the Twentieth Century Fund's trustees to ground its own research program in economic policy and social problems.</p> <p>Under Clark's leadership, the fund hired staff to support its research activities, including economist J. Frederic Dewhurst and research associate Louise Fields. This period also saw the Twentieth Century Fund begin to limit its financial support of outside projects and organizations in favor of concentrating efforts on the foundation's own projects. By 1937, the entirety of the fund's yearly income was devoted to internally developed and supported projects. During board meetings, trustees deliberated over topics that merited critical investigation, and selected fund research staff or outside authors to study and report on the issue. From the early 1930s to the early 1950s, many projects were handled by a committee system. In committee-led projects, research staff members were selected to investigate a topic determined by trustees. A committee of authorities in the field, also selected by trustees, reviewed the research and prepared policy recommendations. Whether a project was headed by an individual author or by a committee, a report with supporting research data was ultimately published in book, pamphlet, or bulletin form under the fund's own imprint, with additional versions created, such as press releases and articles in the popular press, to disseminate the research findings to the widest audience possible.</p> <p>Edward Filene's particular interests in credit unions, cooperative buying, and corporate governance formed the basis for the foundation's early studies, many of which were directed by Clark and Dewhurst. Throughout the 1930s, the fund's research projects also examined stock market regulation, pensions and social security, the cost of medical care, and labor issues. Fund publications such as <span class=\"title\">Stock Market Control</span> (1934) had considerable influence on New Deal legislation, with recommendations from the Twentieth Century Fund report appearing in the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.</p> <p>Throughout the World War II era, the fund's work concentrated on postwar planning for economic demand and defense needs. J. Frederic Dewhurst's <span class=\"title\">America's Needs and Resources</span> (1947), a study that projected the industrial and economic needs of the country for the mid-century, was widely praised by economists and considered one of the fund's classic publications of the era. <span class=\"title\">America's Needs and Resources</span> was also a fund publication that benefitted from an aggressive and long-term dissemination campaign, drawing from the directives of a newly-formed trustee committee on dissemination. The book was updated in new editions and adapted into abridged versions with graphics, several films, and classroom filmstrips to broaden its potential audience and appeal to educational markets.</p> <p>The fund underwent administrative changes and ideological growth in the 1950s, which resulted in an increase in projects undertaken as well as refinement in the way projects were developed. A Research Projects Committee, later simply known as the Projects Committee, was formed to appoint members directly to individual research committees, guide staff exploration of research topics before projects were formalized, oversee projects in process, evaluate incoming proposals, and consider grant applications, which the fund still accepted in small number. The committee, headed during this period by trustees Adolf A. Berle and Benjamin Cohen, could then evaluate the status of projects and refine proposals before making recommendations to the full board. By shifting this work to a committee, the board concentrated on larger issues, including pressing topics worthy of the fund's attention and the overall direction of the fund's research. The new organizational structure helped to increase the publication of major books and studies, and allowed the fund to support a larger range of projects, including short papers, seminars, and conferences. The number of committee-led studies also decreased dramatically by the 1950s in favor of books authored by individuals or two to three person research teams.</p> <p>J. Frederic Dewhurst replaced Evans Clark as director upon the latter's retirement in 1953, but stepped down three years later to continue hands-on work as the fund's research director. August Heckscher was appointed fund director in 1956, and with Adolf A. Berle as chairman of the board, new trustees including Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., John Kenneth Galbraith, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and David E. Lilienthal joined the fund. Heckscher and the board sought to broaden the foundation's research scope, and throughout the 1960s, the fund's projects defined unique characteristics of American society and addressed pressing issues in foreign policy. Landmark works of this period include Jean Gottmann's <span class=\"title\">Megalopolis: The Urbanized Northeastern Seaboard of the United States</span> (1961), which examined the corridor between Boston and Washington, D.C. as a unified region, and is credited as popularizing the concept of the metropolis. Prominent geographer George H. T. Kimble's <span class=\"title\">Tropical Africa</span> (1960) was a thorough survey of the continent's social, political, and economic conditions that aimed to create a more respectful, tolerant understanding of African cultures in American readers. <span class=\"title\">Asian Drama: An Inquiry into the Poverty of Nations</span> (1968) by Gunnar Myrdal was similarly a large-scale study of the political, social, and economic landscape of South Asia, in which Myrdal criticized American strategy in the war with Vietnam, prophesying that it would ultimately fail. Although grant funding was not regularly awarded—and differed from fund-approved projects in that it represented financial support for work occurring outside of the research program—the fund did make occasional grants to individual artists and authors working in fields that intersected with the foundation's research. The fund also made operating grants to new nonprofit organizations, contributing to the establishment of the Theatre Development Fund, the Black Academy of Arts and Letters, and the International Baccalaureate degree program.</p> <p>Murray Rossant, serving as director from 1967 to 1988, greatly expanded the research program's output. The fund ceased its large-scale efforts in publishing its own studies, instead contracting with large commercial publishers and university presses to handle publication and distribution. By eliminating grants and devoting the majority of the fund's income to the direct support of research projects, the publication of books and reports increased in the early 1970s to ten to fifteen titles per year. With the increase in projects running concurrently, the lifecycle of each project became streamlined. Proposals were accepted from both trustee-suggested and unsolicited authors, and the director, appointed research staff, and peer reviewers suggested refinements for the project. The revised proposal, a timeline of work, and budget were then presented to the board. Once a project was approved, the author signed a contract with the fund and corresponded with the director and research staff throughout the research and writing phase. If a manuscript reached final draft stages, the author would then work with the fund's editorial staff to prepare the work for outside publishers. Administrative staff handled planning for book and report release events, though promotion was primarily the responsibility of the publisher. Throughout the life of the project, research staff kept the Projects Committee and full board apprised of its status in the staff report to the board, and projects nearing completion were promoted in the fund's <span class=\"title\">Newsletter</span>.</p> <p>Rossant also instituted task forces to convene a panel of experts on issues in need of immediate examination. Task force members were solicited by trustees and the director, and the work of the group was grounded by a scholar's background paper—the writing of which was overseen by the fund research program. The topics studied by task forces included localized issues, such as the New York City fiscal crisis of the mid 1970s, to national education policies and international relations. While the groups typically met for no longer than one or two years, some reconvened regularly, as was the case for task forces examining the presidential election system. Task forces issued reports intended to guide policymakers, and the background paper and report were published together in one volume. Because the task force reports addressed current issues, the fund published their reports in-house under the Priority Press Publications imprint, which also handled small fund papers that would require longer lead time from a large press. Priority Press also offered printing services to outside foundations for small projects.</p> <p>During Rossant's tenure, the scope of the fund's work widened to include the analysis of American social and cultural institutions. This line of inquiry resulted in studies on the impact of media in the United States, as well as direct financial and administrative support for the creation of the National News Council in 1973. As a media watchdog organization, the National News Council aimed to regulate American news organizations and discourage bias while still preserving the independence of the press; ultimately, it dissolved after eleven years. The issue of economic injustice came under the lens of the foundation's research during the civil rights era, delving into the effect of race and poverty on education policy and employment. The electoral system has remained at the forefront of the foundation's research projects since the early 1970s, resulting in reports on campaign finance, presidential debates, and political appointments.</p> <p>Richard C. Leone served as president from 1989 to 2011, and the beginning of his tenure saw a revival of the fund's interest in foreign policy, as the nation grappled with making sense of a post-Cold War world, looking at improving multilateral institutions and reforming the nation's intelligence agencies. The fund also continued its examination of the media, particularly through the Perspectives on the News series and the Task Force on the Future of Public Television. <span class=\"title\">The New Federalist Papers</span> (1997), a volume of essays that defended the relevance of America's constitutional system in the modern era, showed the foundation's enduring interest in the health of the American political system. In addition, the fund launched several new domestic efforts during this period, most notably to preserve the nation's Social Security program, and to promote socioeconomic integration of public and higher education through the ongoing work of Richard D. Kahlenberg.</p> <p>In 1999, the Twentieth Century Fund was renamed The Century Foundation. Under this new name, and immediately following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the foundation added a new area of focus: keeping intact Americans' established civil liberties in the rush to increase national security. As The Century Foundation, the organization's work continues into the 21st century, with a focus on economic inequality, education, the social safety net, and international policy.</p>"}
- scopecontent
-
{"value"=>"<p>The Century Foundation records date from 1906 to 2010 and document its predecessor organization, The Cooperative League, its founding as the Twentieth Century Fund, and the organization's work throughout the 20th century. The records consist of correspondence, reports, minutes, memoranda, proposals, manuscripts in typewritten and electronic form, photographs, recorded interviews, publications, and films that chart the individual projects of the organization from 1925 to 1996 as well as the evolving focus and areas of study of the foundation. The collection is arranged into five series, based on the original filing system used by the fund.</p> <p>Series I: The Cooperative League and History includes the foundation's certificate of incorporation, by-laws, and corporate resolutions, as well as documentation of the establishment, governance, and expenditure of Filene's stock that formed the fund's endowment. This series also contains documents that discuss the history of the organization and its founder, and an assembled set of minutes from important early meetings of the Cooperative League and Twentieth Century Fund board.</p> <p>Series II: Board of Trustees contains the minutes, correspondence, memoranda, and reports of the foundation's board. Along with the records of the full board, included here are the files of standing trustee committees—the Executive, Dissemination, Finance, and Projects Committees—as well as ad hoc committees tasked with special projects such as anniversary publications and the evaluation of the fund research program. Reports in this series include the fund's annual report as well as audits, special reports on the direction fund program, as well as director and staff reports that inform the board of new proposals for projects and the status of ongoing projects.</p> <p>Series III: General Administrative Files consists of the files of fund directors and individual staff members, representing administrative work that occurred outside of the research program and publishing imprint. The series contains correspondence and memoranda generated by general administrative tasks, editorial staff, and event planning that broadly supported the fund's research projects but does not document the complete cycle of any particular project. While materials in this series span the existence of the Twentieth Century Fund, the bulk of the series dates from Murray Rossant and Richard Leone's directorships from 1970 to the 1990s.</p> <p>Series IV: Projects constitutes the bulk of the collection, documenting studies funded by the foundation from 1925 to 1996. The projects range in size from position papers and books to symposia and conferences, and the series also includes files on the support of outside organizations and committees prior to the 1930s, infrequent grants up to 1970, and task forces. The series is arranged into five subseries. Administrative Files contain contracts for individual projects as well as proposals for rejected or withdrawn projects. The files for projects themselves are chronologically split into two subseries: Early Project Files, from 1925 to 1950, representing the nascent phase of the fund's research program, and Later Project Files, from 1950 to 1996, the fund's most active period of research and publication. Organized in the Project Adaptations subseries are files with correspondence discussing new editions and adaptations created for the wide dissemination of fund projects, including translations, paperbacks, abridgements, films, television specials, and comics. The Task Forces subseries includes correspondence with trustees and appointed task force members, meeting minutes, memoranda, drafts of task force reports, and published task force background papers and reports.</p> <p>Series V: Publication Files originate from the two publishing imprints of the fund, Twentieth Century Fund Press and Priority Press Publications. The series contains promotional materials for publications, order information from outside institutions, and copies of short, popular publications like pamphlet series and informational guides about the fund. The fund's <span class=\"title\">Newsletter</span> is also housed in this series, along with the occasionally-published <span class=\"title\">Newsbriefs</span> clipsheet, and an index to the <span class=\"title\">Newsletter</span>.</p>"}
{"value"=>"<p class='list-head'>The Century Foundation records are arranged in five series:</p>\n<ul class='arrangement series-descriptions'>\n<li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/18811#c731325'>Series I: The Cooperative League and History</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1906-1999</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>Series I documents the founding of the Cooperative League and its transition into the Twentieth Century Fund. The establishment and early history of the organization is recorded in corporate documents such as the charter, resolutions, and by-laws. Extracts from Records consist of a set of minutes and corporate documents collocated by fund staff for reference use, providing quick access to documentation of key events and important meetings in the organization's formative years. Endowment files discuss the expenditure and disposition of Filene's stock shares that were transferred to the fund in 1922 and represented the majority of the organization's income for its first decades. Files on Edward and Lincoln Filene were compiled by staff throughout the 20th century for reference use and short publications, and provide biographical data as well as historical information on William Filene's Sons Company and the Credit Union National Association.</p> <p>Arranged alphabetically by subject or format.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/18811#c731335'>Series II: Board of Trustees</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1920-2010</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>Series II contains the records of the board of trustees, standing committees, and ad hoc committees. Included are meeting minutes, correspondence, memoranda, and reports issued to and by the board on a monthly, quarterly, and annual basis. Standing committees represented in this series include the Projects Committee, also referred to as the Research Committee, which oversees projects during the proposal and research phases; the Dissemination Committee, guiding the promotion of completed research projects and publications; the Finance Committee, which monitors the expenditure of the fund's endowment and capital growth; and the Executive Committee, handling administrative matters of the board.</p> <p>Meeting minutes are arranged under committee name, and also appear in a set of minute books created by fund staff. The minute books interfile by date all minutes from individual committee and full board meetings from 1927 to 1938 and 1971 to 2000, providing a chronological overview of the work of the board as a whole during two periods of major growth for the fund. The agenda and material distributed for review prior to each committee and full board meeting are housed in documentation files separate from minutes. Meetings of the Projects and Dissemination Committees were frequently held jointly in the 1950s and 1960s, therefore this meeting documentation is bound together, and also bound along with the full board and Executive Committee materials during the same time period.</p> <p>Along with the standing committees, trustees also regularly convened ad hoc committees to address short-term needs, such as the purchase of the fund's long-time headquarters in 1957, and provide periodic examination of the research program itself. The special projects files include the work of these committees to assess the direction of the fund's research, as well as its history.</p> <p>Correspondence with individual trustees in this series is split between a general correspondence file, with incomplete chronological runs of incoming and outgoing letters between staff and trustees regarding general meeting matters, and the trustee files, arranged alphabetically by surname. Trustees who joined the board between 1919 and 1991 are all represented in the trustee files, which include incoming and outgoing correspondence that discusses the work of board committees, task forces, and individual projects in greater detail. These files also discuss sporadic projects directed by trustees, as well as commemorative publications about former board members. Additional correspondence between director Richard Leone and a select group of trustees who were active following his appointment are found in Leone's personal files in Series III: General Administrative Files.</p> <p>Reports in this series include annual reports, audits, and reports submitted to the board by the director and fund staff. The director and staff reports both detail the status of ongoing projects, publishing and dissemination activities, and new proposals before the board for review, while the annual reports of the fund briefly introduce new publications and highlight ongoing research projects within the context of the fund's areas of study. Staff reports contain the most comprehensive chronological overview of the fund's research projects within the collection. The reports replaced the monthly and yearly reports of the director and were issued annually beginning in the 1940s, increasing to triannually by the 1970s.</p> <p>Materials are arranged alphabetically by subject.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/18811#c731466'>Series III: General Administrative Files</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1922-2010</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>Series III: General Administrative Files contains the general correspondence files of the office, as well as individual files for the work of directors and staff members. This series documents the administrative work of the fund in support of its research program, but the files do not discuss individual projects in great detail. The files primarily consist of correspondence and memoranda. The office papers of high-level administrators, including Edward Filene, August Heckscher, Murray Rossant, and Richard Leone are arranged by surname, though files dated prior to 1970 are relatively incomplete. Administrative papers of associate directors, fund economists, and research directors, including Isador Lubin and Bernard Wasow, are also included and arranged by surname. Support staff work is documented in the editorial and events files. Editorial files discuss the general editorial practices of the fund, while a small run of project files, arranged alphabetically by author, document the revision process for books and reports. These complement the more complete files in Series IV, where most project-specific editorial correspondence and memoranda is found arranged within individual project files. Event files cover the planning of publication release parties and other special events hosted by the fund. This series also holds materials discussing the fund's headquarters on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and the fund's contributions to the City of New York in lieu of taxes.</p> <p>Arrangement is alphabetical by subject or name.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/18811#c731511'>Series IV: Projects</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1924-2001</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>Series IV: Projects comprises the bulk of the collection, documenting the primary work of the foundation in supporting the creation of new research on economic, political, and social issues. Project files consist of correspondence, memoranda, proposals, contracts, manuscripts, photographs, publications, and press releases showing the development of research projects such as book-length studies, position papers, conferences, and seminars. Along with research projects, the fund's support of outside organizations and committees is also documented. Task force files are included in this series, as the work of these groups was supported by the research staff of the fund. This series is arranged into five subseries: Administrative Files, Early Project Files, Later Project Files, Project Adaptations, and Task Forces.</p> <p>In addition to typewritten draft manuscripts, this series contains electronic drafts of background papers, reports, and books from task forces and individual authors dating from 1988 to 1992. The electronic drafts consist of 63 word processing files that arrived on 14 5.25-inch and 3 3.5-inch floppy disks. These files are arranged in Subseries IV. C.: Later Project Files and IV. E.: Task Forces. Access to electronic drafts is available in the Manuscripts and Archives Reading Room, where researchers can browse, keyword search, and view the records.</p> <p>This series contains seven audio recordings of task force meetings and media interviews with authors for the promotion of publications. Thirteen films from the educational film series are also included, as is one video recording of a Fred Friendly Seminar. Sound and video recordings are unavailable for use at this time pending preservation transfer.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/18811#c732442'>Series V: Publication Files</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1930-1993</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>Series V: Publication Files consists of promotional materials and order information for Twentieth Century Fund Press and Priority Press publications. Popular pamphlet series from 1930 to 1960—such as the Public Policy Bulletins, Personal Growth Leaflets, and committee reports—are included, as are short publications about the Twentieth Century Fund. The fund's <span class=\"title\">Newsletter</span> and <span class=\"title\">Newsbriefs</span> clipsheet contain short articles about new publications, completed projects, and general updates about the fund; an index to the <span class=\"title\">Newsletter</span> is also available. Promotional materials for books, pamphlets, films, and other productions contain flyers, discussion guides, and press releases. Order information is divided between orders made to the fund directly, solely from 1970, and orders addressed to Priority Press throughout the 1980s.</p> <p>Arranged alphabetically by subject.</p></div></li></ul>\n", "type"=>"arrangement"}
- acqinfo
-
{"value"=>"<p>Gift of The Century Foundation, 2012.</p>"}
- processinfo
-
{"type"=>"processing", "value"=>"<p>Compiled by <span class=\"name\">Weatherly Stephan</span>, <span class=\"date\">2013</span></p>"}
{"value"=>"<p>The collection was arranged into series based on the original order of the records as maintained by the foundation's staff, and original folder titles were retained. Routine financial statements, duplicate publications, and documents with sensitive personal information were removed. The floppy disks that comprise the Electronic Drafts component were forensically imaged for preservation. Some of the textual documents from these images were migrated to Microsoft's .docx format in order to create a full-text keyword searchable index. Additionally, named entity extraction algorithms were run on the migrated documents to identify personal, organizational, and location names contained within them.</p>"}
- accessrestrict
-
{"value"=>"<p>Electronic records are available for onsite use only. Sound and video recordings are unavailable for use at this time pending preservation transfer.</p>"}
- dsc_type
-
combined
- extent_statement
-
190 linear feet (456 boxes); 4,462 Kilobytes (63 computer files)
- date_bulk_start
-
1960
- date_bulk_end
-
1996