Making the Nonprofit Sector in the United States

The classic documents and scholarly interpretations of the history of American nonprofits.

How did the United States come to rely so heavily on non-profits? How have Americans sought to control them? These questions suggest the complexity of the history of non-profits in the United States. This reader presents some of the documents in the development of the non-profit sector along with interpretations by scholars.

Now in paperback!
Making the Nonprofit Sector in the United States
A Reader
Edited with Introductions by David C. Hammack

"Masterfully mining and sifting a four-century historical record, David Hammack has composed an extraordinarily valuable volume: a 'one-stop-shopping' sourcebook on the secular and religious origins and the astonishing growth (and periodic growing pains) of America's nonprofit sector—and the challenges and dilemmas it confronts today." —John Simon, Yale University

"It is a delight to see an anthology on nonprofit history done so well." —Barry Karl, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

"This is a volume that everyone concerned about nonprofits—scholar, practitioner, and citizen—will
find useful and illuminating." —Peter Dobkin Hall, Program on Non-Profit Organizations Yale Divinity School

"A remarkable book." —Robert Putnam, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

"An outstanding and timely collection of essential readings for students, researchers and practitioners, carefully edited and introduced by one of the leading historical authorities on the nonprofit sector." —Roseanne M. Mirabella, Center for Public Service, Seton Hall University

Unique among nations, the United States conducts almost all of its formally organized religious activity, as well as many cultural, arts, human service, educational, and research activities, through private nonprofit organizations. This reader explores their history by presenting some of the classic documents in the development of the nonprofit sector along with important interpretations and critiques by recent scholars.

David C. Hammack is Hiram C. Haydon Professor of History and Chair of the Committee on Educational Programs of the Mandel Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Case Western Reserve University.

Philanthropic Studies—Dwight F. Burlingame and David C. Hammack, general editors