Boosting Traditional Architecture
The architecture school at the University of Notre Dame is known, along with the University of Miami, as the finest in the U.S. for the study of classical architecture and Read more…
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Saving Consecrated Ground
When John Nau was eight years old, his family visited a Civil War battlefield in Kentucky. Walking the contested land created a yearning in the boy and a fascination with Read more…
Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants
The increase of American population plus general affluence following World War II caused an acute shortage of doctors, especially in rural communities, and an escalation of medical costs. The University Read more…
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
Located in Memphis, Tennessee, St. Jude Children’s Hospital is internationally famous for its tight focus on treating and finding cures for catastrophic diseases of childhood—cancer especially. Nearly 8,000 young patients Read more…
Kidney Transplants and Dialysis
In 1940, an estimated $45 million was spent on biomedical research in the U.S., only $3 million of it from the federal government. World War II accelerated government health research, Read more…
DNA
In 1944, three scientists working at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research proved that it was the threadlike fibers of DNA, present in all cells, that were the chemical basis Read more…
Eradicating Polio
Polio is one of the most wounding viruses in history, and reached pandemic proportions in the early twentieth century. In America at that time it killed more people every year Read more…
Population Control Movement
As early as the 1920s, some notable philanthropists were strong backers of measures to reduce births among poor individuals. John Rockefeller Senior, Junior, and the Third were all strong supporters Read more…
Cardiac Catheterization
Surgeries to alleviate congenital heart diseases began to advance rapidly in the 1940s and 1950s. Many of the techniques for detecting and diagnosing heart problems, however—life histories, physical examination, fluoroscopy, Read more…
Kinsey Reports
Most of the funding for Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, the controversial book on sexual practice published by insect biologist Alfred Kinsey in 1948, was funded by the Rockefeller Read more…
Sloan Kettering Institute
General Motors vice president Charles Kettering is most famously known for his automotive inventions, such as the first electrical starter motor and leaded gasoline, and the 185 patents he held. Read more…
The Lasker Prize
In 1942, pioneering advertising executive Albert Lasker and his wife, Mary, established a foundation to champion medical research. Their first major project (and the primary work of their foundation, still) Read more…
Penicillin
British scientist Alexander Fleming first uncovered the ability of mold to stem bacteria growth in 1928, but his finding drew little attention. It was Australian scientist Howard Florey and a Read more…
Pap Smear
Cervical cancer was the deadliest form of cancer for women until physician George Papanicolau developed a highly effective method to detect the disease even before any symptoms were present. Papanicolau Read more…
March of Dimes
The March of Dimes is one of the most popular and successful charity campaigns in American history. Founded in 1938 by polio victim Franklin Roosevelt as the National Foundation for Read more…
Yellow Fever Vaccine
Yellow fever, one of the most feared diseases in America, ravaged port towns and nearby communities throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In addition to the human toll, international trade Read more…
Health Insurance
Until almost 1930, health insurance to cover the risk of expensive hospitalization or doctor care did not exist in the United States. Families rolled the dice, and if a member Read more…
Molecular Biology
In 1928, the Rockefeller Foundation established a natural sciences division headed by University of Wisconsin mathematics professor Warren Weaver. Weaver encouraged collaboration among biologists, chemists, mathematicians, and medical researchers, and Read more…
A Standard Nomenclature of Disease
Before 1933, no standard reference existed in American medicine for describing and diagnosing illnesses. The New York Academy of Medicine convened the first conference on the nomenclature of disease in Read more…
Influenza Virus
When the influenza pandemic struck in 1918, most scientists and doctors believed it was caused by bacteria. Killing up to 100 million people worldwide, the pandemic was the deadliest in Read more…