Peabody Fund
PEABODY FUND
PEABODY FUND, the pioneer educational foundation in the United States, was established in 1867 by George Peabody, a native of Massachusetts, who subsequently became a banker in London. He gave $2 million to encourage and assist educational efforts in the U.S. South, to help the region recover from the ravages of the Civil War. To administer the fund he named sixteen men of distinction from the North and the South. The fund greatly assisted general education and teacher training for both whites and blacks in the states that had formed the Confederacy and in West Virginia. Dissolved in 1914, during its lifetime the Peabody Fund distributed about $3.65 million.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Dillingham, George A. The Foundation of the Peabody Tradition. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1989.
Edgar W.Knight/d. b.
See alsoCivil War ; Education ; Education, African American ; Philanthropy ; Reconstruction ; South, the: The New South ; Teacher Training .