EDUCATION IN AFRICA AND AMERICA: A HISTORY OF THE PHELPS-STOKES FUND, 1911-1945

Abstract

In her will establishing the Phelps-Stokes Fund which was incorporated in 1911 Caroline Phelps Stokes specified that the income from her bequest be used for the erection of tenement dwellings for the poor of New York City as well as for educational work among North American Indians and Negroes in the United. States and Africa. This study concentrates on the latter racial group. The Phelps and Stokes families had long been active in charitable causes. The educational philosophy of the Fund was influenced by that of Hampton and Tuskegee Institutes the Jeanes Fund and the General Education Board. The Fund and its key personnel Anson Phelps Stokes and Thomas Jesse Jones were part of an interlocking directorate which profoundly influenced Negro educational policy in the United States Jones 191 survey of Negro education in America projected the Fund into the forefront of those groups concerned with the education of the backward peoples. In 1919 with support from the influential Conference of British Missionary Societies and the British Colonial Office Jones led a commission to survey the educational facilities and needs of West and South Africa. A sequel to East and Central Africa followed in 1923.