1920's Lifestyles and Social Trends | Frank, Lawrence K. 1890-1968

FOUNDATION EXECUTIVE AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENTIST

Foundations.

Anthropologist Margaret Mead said in her obituary of Lawrence K. Frank that he "used [philanthropic] foundations the way the Lord meant them to be used." Frank grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, and received his B.A. degree in economics from Columbia University in 1912. As a graduate student he met Columbia economist Wesley C. Mitchell, who with his wife, the educator Lucy Sprague Mitchell, became friends and influential mentors of Frank.

Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial.

In 1923 Frank was selected as director of the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial, a new foundation that was part of the Rockefeller family philanthropies and devoted exclusively to the well-being of children. Instead of using the foundation's considerable resources to aid existing child-welfare agencies, Frank decided to create new preventive facilities studying the psychological...