1901

Founding of Rockefeller Institute, with William Welch president of board of directors and Simon Flexner as director. It provided $12k in 1901 and $14.5k in grants-in-aid in 1902 (Flexner, 269ff.). First laboratory opened in NY in 1904, with Flexner as director. In 1907, Welch became president of board of “scientific directors,” which position he held for 32 years; in 1910, the Institute’s Research Hospital was opened (294). In 1909 Rockefeller established a $50 million trust, designated the Rockefeller Foundation. It invested in schools of public health, gave scholarships to students worldwide, and created the International Health Board (IHB); it was guided by the vision of eliminating communicable disease, which it deemed “the single greatest measure to improve human health” (Byerly, 230).