The National Research Council and the Early History of American Physical Anthropology The NRC was a federal agency established in 1916 to coordinate the country’s scientific resources in the interests of national security and preparedness in anticipation of the U.S. entering the war in Europe. The council was chaired by a longtime acquaintance of Grant’s, astronomer G. E. Hale, and was funded mainly by reliable eugenics funders, the Carnegie Corporation and the Rockefeller Foundation.
