Phelps-Stokes Fund

The Phelps and Stokes families had long been associated with a variety of philanthropic enterprises in the 19th and 20th centuries. The Phelps-Stokes Fund was created in 1911 as a non-profit foundation under the will of Caroline Phelps Stokes. Its original objectives were to improve housing for the poor in New York City, and the "education of Negroes, both in Africa and the United States, North American Indians, and needy and deserving white students." The contacts maintained by the staff and trustees of the Fund through correspondence, travel, and service on numerous boards and commissions often had a greater impact than any direct financial assistance rendered by the Fund. For the period of these records, it served as a headquarters for visiting African educators, students and government officials, and, in addition to sponsoring its own commissions and reports, became a clearinghouse for information on the intellectual and political life of colonial and post-colonial Africa.

From the guide to the Phelps-Stokes Fund records, 1893-1970, (The New York Public Library. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division.)

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