The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research is a private operating foundation. It was founded in 1941 with two million US dollars in Electrolux and Servell stock with an original mission to promote “research, educational, technical and scientific work.” However, it rapidly became clear that the endowment was too small to compete with major foundations such as Ford or Rockefeller and its focus shifted to the then nascent field of anthropology. The founders’ original justification for support of anthropology was the large vision of the field and its potential importance to the development of post-World War II social cooperation. In addition there was concern over the rapid disappearance of important ethnographic and archaeological
