Buzz
What do the Nobel Prize, ASPCA, Planned Parenthood, and Batman have in common? The answer is their astonishingly sinister beginnings. It turns out that even beyond vigilante heroes, many of our most cherished organizations carry a history more aligned with characters like The Punisher than any respected charity. I’m referring to institutions such as:
10. Planned Parenthood
Planned Parenthood is an organization focused on advocating for women's reproductive rights. Regardless of political views, many would agree that their work in contraception and cervical health has had a significant positive impact—even though its founder was a racist with genocidal beliefs.
Indeed, Margaret Sanger was as extreme as they come; her 1932 essay My Way to Peace gleefully divides the world into countries with “desirable national characteristics” and those without. She was also an ardent eugenicist, obsessed with purging physical, moral, and mental “defectives,” whom she advocated be segregated, sterilized, and sent to work on “farms.”
By the way, her list of 'defectives' included the poor, epileptics, the unemployed, and illiterate individuals. In total, she estimated that the U.S. needed to segregate five million of its citizens. Even her work in promoting birth control was pitched as a way to “improve the quality of the race”; a reminder that sometimes the best things come from the worst places.
9. ASPCA
Without the ASPCA, we might still be dealing with cockfighting, unregulated slaughterhouses, and no legal consequences for animal cruelty. Keep that in mind as you read on.
In 1894, the charity took over New York’s municipal animal shelter, a responsibility they held for a century. During that time, they arguably ran the most lethal animal shelter ever. At its peak, forty to fifty thousand stray animals were put down each year—an extermination rate so extreme that it could have wiped out the entire dog population if left unchecked.
Things got so dire that in 1976, two members of the charity’s own board sued it for animal cruelty. Just to be clear, this is the same charity that called itself the “American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.” It wasn’t until 1994 that they ended their annual slaughter, passing control to the ACC, which quickly reduced the euthanasia rate to a much less alarming 8,000.
8. The Department Of Energy
It may not exactly be a “beloved” institution, but the Department of Energy gets the job done. Without it, we wouldn’t have domestic power, the Human Genome Project, or the looming threat of nuclear destruction.
This is no joke. Before the Department got involved in the day-to-day workings of the government, its sole mission was to develop a city-destroying bomb. Even before the Cold War officially began, the race was on to perfect a nuclear weapon. The British, Germans, and Americans were all trying to crack the Konami Code of WWII, and it was clear that whoever succeeded first would win. To ensure it wasn’t the Nazis, the U.S. government launched the Manhattan Project, a top-secret effort that employed nearly as many people as the entire car industry. After the war, the project changed hands and names, eventually becoming the seemingly harmless-sounding Department of Energy.
7. Invisible Children
Anyone reading this remembers Kony. He’s the brutal warlord who used child soldiers, and the world once thought it would take him down through viral YouTube videos. The closest our post-Stalin world has to an actual monster, there's no way any organization opposing him could be accused of rank hypocrisy.
Except, of course, it could. As one expert on international conflict in the Congo region pointed out, Kony’s LRA wasn’t the only group exploiting child soldiers and committing atrocities. The Ugandan President has been linked to war crimes too vile to mention on family-friendly sites, as has the SPLA; both of which Invisible Children are involved with. Supporters argue it’s a necessary evil that doesn’t detract from their cause, but how supporting the very entity you oppose can be seen as “fulfilling your mission” is a mystery.
6. Missionaries of Charity
While Gandhi is often hailed for his moral integrity, another figure frequently linked to terms such as 'selflessness' and 'goodness' is Mother Teresa. She was known for her efforts to help the homeless, spending time with lepers, raising massive sums of money for her Missionaries of Charity, and embodying the ideals of a perfect Christian. Who could find fault with such a life?
However, Mother Teresa’s connections were far from saintly. Much like Gandhi, who once publicly called Hitler his 'friend,' she had no issue accepting donations from notorious figures like 'Papa Doc,' the infamous Haitian dictator, or Charles Keating, the American conman who gave over $1 million in stolen funds to her cause. These contributions were never returned to their rightful owners.
But surely, the money was being used for noble purposes, right? Unfortunately, not quite. A 1991 report revealed that the Missionaries allocated only seven percent of their donations to those they intended to help, with the remaining funds used for constructing additional missions. As if that wasn't enough, the report also uncovered distressing accounts of negligence at the Calcutta mission. Volunteers, often lacking proper medical training, contributed to avoidable deaths. A sobering reminder that even those seen as virtuous have their flaws.
5. PEW Charitable Trusts
You may not be familiar with PEW, but they’re a non-partisan NGO that focuses on improving public policy and safeguarding the environment. Interestingly, they were founded by a group of free-market enthusiasts. And, yes, they’re known for advocating those ideals.
Let me clarify before anyone gets upset: supporting a free-market system is a perfectly valid stance. However, claiming that Roosevelt’s New Deal was “a colossal plot to demolish American businesses and reduce the public to mindless, ballot-casting subjects” is a step too far. The PEW Trust, established by the descendants of oil magnate Joseph N. Pew, initially lobbied for unrestricted drilling rights. But in a surprising twist, they shifted gears and became ardent environmental advocates.
4. Mensa
Mensa was officially established following a serendipitous encounter on a train, but the concept of a club for highly intelligent individuals was first proposed by Cyril Burt in 1946. Burt, earlier in his career, had been a member of the British Eugenics Society—a collective of doctors, scientists, and educators focused on “preserving the virility of the Anglo-Saxon race”.
This connection isn’t some flimsy association either; one of Mensa’s two co-founders openly acknowledged Burt’s impact and even made him the honorary president. Of course, that was a long time ago, and Mensa has distanced itself from eugenics, except for that brief period in 1995 when their newsletter suggested the homeless “be humanely done away with, like abandoned kittens”.
3. The Boy Scouts
Lord Baden-Powell was as old-school British as they come: rugged, adventurous, deeply uneasy with masturbation, and probably gay. In 1908, he released the now-iconic book ‘Scouting for Boys,’ and the rest, as they say, is history—except for the part where he was a fan of Hitler.
I’m not joking. Baden-Powell’s diary from 1939 includes the unforgettable line: “Lay up all day. Read Mein Kampf. A wonderful book.” Throughout the thirties, he kept handing out Swastika badges, well after it was socially reckless to be seen in public wearing one; in 1937, he even met the German ambassador in London to talk about building stronger ties between the Scouts and Hitler Youth.
As if that wasn’t enough, MI5 even has records of him complaining about the “socialist press” when Scouts appeared in uniform at a fascist rally. So, to summarize, the founder of the Scouts was a sexually repressed admirer of Hitler who handed out swastikas to children and supported Nazi Germany. History really knows how to ruin our childhood memories.
2. Barnardo’s
Being a homeless child in Victorian London wasn’t all cheerful songs and clever tricks; for every cheeky little scamp, there were countless frightened, starving kids at constant risk of being exploited. In 1867, philanthropist Dr. Thomas Barnardo decided enough was enough and vowed to help Britain’s orphans—even if it meant kidnapping healthy children from happy families. Wait, what?
It turns out Dr. Barnardo had a rather loose interpretation of what it meant to “help”; while sometimes this involved finding homes for homeless kids, other times it meant abducting infants from their godless Catholic parents. For Barnardo, abuse and Catholicism were practically synonymous. Over his lifetime, he forcibly relocated thousands of otherwise well-off children to Canada or Australia—usually without informing their parents. For those unfamiliar with Victorian laws, this was illegal. Barnardo was taken to court eighty-eight times on related charges, but somehow each case was dismissed. And that 'Dr.' in front of his name? He just made that up.
1. The Nobel Prize
For most people, winning a Nobel Prize is probably the highest honor imaginable. Forget the Oscars or Pulitzers—a Nobel says to the world that you’re not only brilliant but that you’re brilliant in the service of the greater good. What kind of living saint would establish such a charitable award?
What about someone known as 'The Merchant of Death'? Before dedicating his wealth to fostering brilliance, Alfred Nobel was primarily an inventor, and his most significant invention was dynamite. When the time came for his obituary in 1888, a French newspaper acknowledged his contribution to global suffering with the headline 'The Merchant of Death is Dead.'
But here’s the twist: he wasn’t dead. The newspaper had prematurely announced his passing, and Alfred, very much alive, read his own obituary. This unfortunate misstep deeply affected him, so much so that he became obsessed with protecting his name. He ultimately created the Nobel Prize to safeguard his legacy from the critical French journalists.
