Overview Peter Dobkin Hall was a historian of American philanthropy, who held appointments at Wesleyan (1974-1982), Yale (1973-1999), and Harvard (2000 until death), and was Scholar in Residence at the Rockefeller Archive Center in 1989. He was extensively published in philanthropy but it probably best known for his book "'Inventing the Nonprofit Sector' and Other Essays on Philanthropy, Voluntarism, and Nonprofit Organizations."