Toward a Historian's Laboratory

The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago was begun in 1919 with a personal grant from John D. Rockefeller, Jr.1 However, what is now a renowned and permanent institution for ancient Near Eastern scholarship, began life as a temporary creation.2 Rockefeller's gift was for a five-year period only beyond which he would not extend his support. The formal pledge and annual allocations were made to the University of Chicago which, he believed, should seek backing from other sources if it wished the program to continue after five years. Although the grant was made in response to a proposal from James H. Breasted (1865-1935), America's first formallytrained Egyptologist and a University of Chicago professor,3 its non-renewable terms were not communicated to Breasted because of a turnover in the university's presidency. Anticipating the grant's depletion in mid-1924, Breasted submitted a proposal to continue the Oriental Institute by endowing its program and building for it a modern research center and museum.4 Rockefeller initially responded with dismay and refused to take up the request.5 He later agreed to consider the request as though it were for a new project, however, and eventually decided to provide five additional years of funding. But Rockefeller did so without any committal, expressed or implied, as to further support,6 and he explicitly declined two items: Rockefeller would neither

Ancient history · Art · Palestine · Ancient Egypt and Archaeology · Archaeological Research and Protection · Classics · History

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