It was founded in New York to help victims of the Great Depression, and it supported the ideas and methods of the President Roosevelt’s New Deal.
[4] In 1965, Leslie W. Dunbar, director of the Southern Regional Council, succeeded Hahn and moved the organization’s focus more on those struggling from poverty and minority groups.
In 1967 its examination of the state of poor Southern communities led to an expansion of food stamp and school lunch programs.
[4] In 1970s the organization under Dunbar started to examine federal activities more closely, studying surveillance, arms programs, and civil liberties violations.
Under him, the Field Foundation funded the Study Group on Social Security, an organization monitoring Government reductions of benefits to the elderly, disabled, widows, and orphans.
[7][8] Boone’s policies led the organization to support black voter registration programs, U.S. resettlement of IndoChina refugees, funded the Communications Consortium Media Center, and researched hunger in the U.S.