The Board was created in 1902 after John D. Rockefeller donated an initial $1 million () to its cause. The Rockefeller family would eventually give over $180 million to fund the General Education Board. Prominent member Frederick Taylor Gates envisioned "The Country School of To-Morrow," wherein "young and old will be taught in practicable ways how to make rural life beautiful, intelligent, fruitful, re-creative, healthful, and joyous." By 1934 the Board was making grants of $5.5 million a year. It spent nearly all its money by 1950 and closed in 1964.