---
title: History of Charity
group: Research
order: 9
summary: Browse a sourced historical timeline and compare cases through their mechanisms, contexts, missing records and conditional lessons.
status: live
statusNote: Live filters, a source-linked timeline and a comparison notebook cover the current 13 draft cases. Broader historical coverage and independent source review remain open.
conditions: [short-horizon, silence-about-failure]
firstMilestone: Twenty sourced case studies spanning at least four centuries and five world regions, with successes, failures and mixed results all represented.
help:
  - Write a sourced case study of a historical success, failure or mixed result and open a pull request.
  - Open an issue labeled program proposing a case the collection is missing, especially from outside Europe and North America.
  - Check an existing case’s sources and lessons.
related: [/record/case-studies/, /record/traditions/, /open-problems/measuring-the-source/, /programs/failure-lab/]
sources:
  - title: 'Smallpox: A Great and Terrible Scourge, “Success”'
    publisher: U.S. National Library of Medicine
    url: https://nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/smallpox/sp_success.html
  - title: 'Charity Organization Societies: 1877-1893'
    publisher: John E. Hansan, Social Welfare History Project, VCU Libraries
    year: 2013
    url: https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/organizations/charity-organization-societies-1877-1893/
---

## Use the live research desk

Filter the timeline by period or place, reported outcome and depth. Open the lessons and source links, then compare two different cases in the [notebook](#workspace-history-of-charity). A timeline does not establish causation. Record differences and missing perspectives before carrying a lesson into a new setting.

Your workspace stays in this browser. Save records, edit them or fork frozen versions, export JSON, a research memo or CSV, and import a backup with an explicit replacement step. Deleting or clearing offers an undo while the page remains open. No notes are submitted to Charitology. The institutional goals below remain the program’s longer-term charter.

## What it is

Giving has a long record, and much of it has never been read as evidence. The History of Charity program studies that record: which efforts solved a problem for good, which ones failed and why, and what each one teaches today. Each study becomes an entry in the [Historical Case Studies](/record/case-studies/).

## How it works

Every case follows one format: what happened, where and when, where it acted on the [depth scale](/method/#depth), and the lessons that carry over. Cases are labeled as successes, failures or mixed results, and every claim is sourced. The first case is the eradication of smallpox, which the World Health Organization judged complete in 1980.

History also holds earlier attempts at a science of giving, and Charitology studies them as closely as any other case. Starting with the London Charity Organization Society, founded in 1869, reformers tried to put charity on a scientific footing. They investigated and registered applicants, kept central records and brought local charities together to coordinate their work. Their methods later fed into the casework of modern social work. They also screened applicants by asking whether each one was worthy or unworthy. Both halves of that legacy are lessons. The first shows that careful method can grow into a profession. The second is a warning Charitology takes seriously: study the system, and never grade the people in it.

## Why it matters for the system

History is the only place where the long run has already happened. The [Short Horizon](/diagnosis/short-horizon/) means most giving is judged within a year or two. A case study can show what a twenty-year effort achieved, or what a quick success cost later.

History also works against the [Silence About Failure](/diagnosis/silence-about-failure/). Failures that were never published at the time can still be studied from archives, so their lessons are learned once instead of again and again.

## Risks and limits

The surviving records may come mostly from funders and institutions rather than the people they served, and famous successes may be better documented than quiet failures. The program seeks sources from the communities involved, and each case should say how complete its record is.

## What success looks like

Within five years, the case studies cover successes, failures and mixed results from many regions and centuries, and Charitology’s methods cite the historical evidence behind them.