Did leaders in Rockefeller philanthropy promote preferred research agendas in the social sciences? Did their efforts conflict with an ideal of scientific objectivity?

Increasingly over a period from the late 1880s to the late 1920s, persons associated with Rockefeller philanthropy made genuine efforts to support social scientists while identifying ways in which personal biases could creep into their decision-making. Through a period of four decades, leaders at Rockefeller philanthropy established principles and mechanisms to protect against this. These principles and mechanisms proved relatively successful at neutralizing personal biases of at least most kinds. One overriding principle was an emphasis on supporting a range of projects diverse enough to neutralize any failures within Rockefeller philanthropy to restrain a personal, ideological or political bias. This book has made sense of this process, especially by considering sustained conversations between philanthropists and social scientists, episodic communications about grant proposals and awards, and occasional self-assessments within Rockefeller philanthropy. All evidence shows a process of learning about the principles of scientific neutrality.

The Rockefellers learned to keep informed about changing ideas concerning relationships between the business interest and the public interest. Within the context of these changing ideas, they increasingly favoured philanthropic support of social science. They appointed professional philanthropists and scientific experts to help ensure that there would be little evidence that Rockefeller philanthropy attempted to impose any particular direction on the social sciences.