A decade ago, the two dozen academic programs on nonprofit organizations in the United States were generally located in colleges and universities whose libraries usually owned the important publications relating to philanthropy, charity, voluntary associations, and related topics.

Today, there are more than two hundred programs offering courses and/or degrees on nonprofits around the world, most of which do not have easy access to key articles and journals in the field.

This series of on-line reissues of classic works on philanthropy, nonprofit organizations, charity, and related topics, hopes to meet the needs of students, faculty, and researchers for classic books and articles produced over the past century.

Publications in this series will include both books and articles from every scholarly discipline. The original texts are made available unedited, introduced by essays written by leading scholars. The texts can be browsed on-line, printed from the web, or downloaded to readers' PCs.

This project is sponsored by the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government and generously funded by the Charles Stewart Mott and Surdna Foundations.

The texts are in .pdf format. To view and use these texts readers will need Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader software, which can be obtained here.

Available works in the series include the following:

Ayres, Leonard Porter. Seven Great Foundations. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation, 1907. With a new introduction by David C. Hammack, Hiram C. Hayden Professor of History, Case Western Reserve University.

Bacon, Leonard. Four Essays on Organizational Governance:

• The Christian Doctrine of Stewardship in Respect to Property (1832)

• Responsibility in the Management of Societies (1847)

• Sketch of the Life and Public Services of Hon. James Hillhouse of New Haven (1860)

• A Voice from Squashville (1870)

With a new introduction by Peter Dobkin Hall, Harvard University.

Curti, Merle, & Nash, Roderick. Philanthropy in the Shaping of American Higher Education. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1965. With a new introduction by Andrea Walton, Indiana University.

Goodale, Francis (ed.). Literature of Philanthropy. New York, NY: Harper & Brothers, 1893. With a new introduction by Darwin Stapleton, Director, Rockefeller Archive Center.

Miller, Howard S. The Legal Foundations of American Philanthropy, 1776-1844. Madison, WI: Wisconsin Historical Society. With a new introduction by Peter Dobkin Hall, Harvard University.

Stewart, William Rhinelander. The Philanthropic Work of Josephine Shaw Lowell, Containing a Biographical Sketch of Her Life, Together with a Selection of Her Public Papers and Private Letters. New York, NY: MacMillan & Company, 1922. With a New Introduction by Joan Waugh, Associate Professor of History, UCLA.

Watson, Frank Dekker. The Charity Organization Movement in the United States: A Study in American Philanthropy. New York, NY: The MacMillan Company, 1922. With a new introduction by Joel Schwartz, Director, Summer Seminars for College Teachers Program, National Endowment for the Humanities.

Zollmann, Carl. American Law of Charities. Milwaukee, WI: Bruce Publishing Company, 1924. With a new introduction by Marion R. Fremont-Smith, Senior Research Fellow, Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations, Harvard University.

To download or open file, click the title.

For questions about the series, email Peter Dobkin Hall