John Hay Whitney Foundation

The John Hay Whitney Foundation was originally named the Greenwood Foundation when it was founded by John Hay Whitney as a New York City-based, nonprofit corporation in 1946. Mr. Whitney returned from World War II with a social vision and desire to invest in people, ideas, and the future of post-war America. Greenwood Foundation’s mission stemmed from Mr. Whitney’s belief that education could help ethnic minorities and individuals from underprivileged backgrounds realize their potential. The Foundation supported talented individuals who had been excluded from mainstream American life because of race, gender, poverty or substandard schooling.

Between 1947 and 1949, the Foundation made grants for special projects led by other tax-exempt organizations in the fields of education, the humanities, and the social sciences. The first major grants were to the National Planning Association in Washington, D.C. for a labor relations study and a grant to support ten scholarships for African-American students studying the social sciences at Fisk University. In 1949, the Board of Trustees renamed the organization the John Hay Whitney Foundation and appointed subcommittees to administer their own programs stemming from the Foundation’s mission.

In 1949, the John Hay Whitney Foundation started its earliest major initiative called the Opportunity Fellowship Program. From 1950 to 1971, the Opportunity Fellowship Program awarded 956 fellowships to individuals pursuing graduate or professional study in the humanities and the study of the arts. The Foundation’s Committee of Award was appointed to review applications and select recipients, principally ethnic minorities and individuals from underprivileged backgrounds, who had encountered barriers to educational opportunities.

Two programs followed in 1951 which expanded the profile of a grant recipient to include professors. From 1951 to 1965, the Foundation established the Whitney-Fulbright Professorship to bring professors of the humanities and social sciences from other countries to teach at undergraduate colleges and universities in the United States. The Whitney Visiting Professors program named retired or retiring professors to a year of teaching at undergraduate colleges after completing work at their own institutions.

In 1952, the Foundation established their largest and most developed program, the John Hay Fellows Program. Designed to encourage education in the humanities through the training of secondary school teachers, there were two components: John Hay Year Fellows and John Hay Summer Fellows. The Humanities Committee awarded year-long fellowships to John Hay Year Fellows and coordinated planned study in the humanities at Yale University and Columbia University. In 1958, the Foundation secured additional financing from the Ford Foundation and the year-long program expanded to additional institutions, including Harvard University, Northwestern University, University of Chicago, and the University of California at Berkeley. This funding allowed for the creation of the John Hay Summer Fellows who attended Summer Institutes for the Humanities at Bennington College, Colorado College, and Williams College. Between 1952 and 1966, the program supported 688 John Hay Year Fellows and 1,359 John Hay Summer Fellows.

The 1970s marked a shift in the Foundation’s focus from providing individual fellowships to supporting community-based educational and governmental agencies committed to the humanities and social sciences. After 1971, the Foundation supported one or two year projects related to, among other topics, farming, housing, education, and economic development in the United States.

John Hay Whitney served as the Foundation president from 1946 to 1970 and then chairman from 1970 until his death in 1982. Mr. Whitney planned for the dissolution of the Foundation in his estate and the Foundation ceased operations in 1983 but continued to spend down its funds on small grants and donations until 1986.

Source: John Hay Whitney Foundation, by Esther Raushenbush (Vol. I) and by Daniel Powell (Vol. II), 1972.

About the Creators was authored by Greentree Foundation.

From the guide to the John Hay Whitney Foundation records, 1946-1994, (Manuscripts and Archives)