Getty Museum
“Twentieth-century barbarians cannot be transformed into cultured, civilized human beings until they acquire an appreciation and love for art,” pronounced the cranky J. Paul Getty. Born in 1892, the immensely Read more…
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Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
As one of America’s foremost female patrons of the arts, Isabella Stewart Gardner was determined to open a museum that would be available “for the education and enrichment of the Read more…
Carnegie and Music for God
When some relatives approached Andrew Carnegie in 1903 about supporting their church, he balked. Instead of money, he offered to provide it with an organ. Even skeptics like himself could Read more…
Juilliard School
Frank Damrosch was born into music. His father was a conductor and his mother a singer; his godfather was composer Franz Liszt. The household moved from Germany to America when Read more…
Longwood Gardens
In 1906, Pierre du Pont purchased some land from Philadelphia-area farmers in order to preserve an arboretum that had been established on the acreage. Du Pont was the fourth-generation executive Read more…
Preserving Fort Ticonderoga
The scene (during the French and Indian War) of the bloodiest battle in America until the time of the Civil War, Fort Ticonderoga on the New York shore of Lake Read more…
Loeb Classical Library
A book from the Loeb Classical Library is instantly recognizable. Each of the 518 hardbound volumes is uniformly sized and sports a minimalist cover—red for works in Latin and green Read more…
Museum of the American Indian
George Heye (pronounced “hi”) was raised in a wealthy home in New York City, and despite finishing college with an electrical-engineering degree in 1896, opted in 1901 to start an Read more…
Godmother of the Harlem Renaissance
Charlotte Mason was a wealthy white widow who in the 1920s thought black art had a spirituality and “primitive energy” that nothing else mustered. She was a controversial figure even Read more…
Joseph Pulitzer Celebrates Letters and Arts
At Joseph Pulitzer’s death, the self-made Hungarian immigrant who built the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and later the New York World into hugely successful newspapers left $2 million to Columbia University Read more…
Frick Collection
Henry Clay Frick was a Pittsburgh industrial magnate who made his money in coal and steel. He built an impressive mansion in New York City that was designed, from its Read more…
Huntington Library
The Huntington Library is one of the world’s great cultural, research, and educational centers. It was founded by Henry Huntington, an upstate New Yorker who came to California and built Read more…
America’s First Modern Art Museum
Duncan Phillips was the son of a Pittsburgh businessman, and had a passion for art along with family economic means. In 1914, six years after his graduation from Yale, he Read more…
Eastman School of Music
George Eastman had raised himself from poverty to wealth by founding Eastman Kodak, pioneering much of the science and art of photography, and building his company to world dominance through Read more…
Morgan Library
In 1890, when his father died and left him the family’s London banking house and millions of dollars, J. Pierpont Morgan began collecting on a grand scale. Over the next Read more…
Barnes Collection
Albert Barnes had been raised in one of Philadelphia’s poorest neighborhoods, with experiences to match. Fistfights, not painting, dominated his childhood. Ferocious determination became one of his most characteristic traits. Read more…
Yaddo
Manhattan financier Spencer Trask was one of Thomas Edison’s principal backers, and provided money that supported development of the light bulb, telephone, phonograph, trolley car, electric grid, and motor car. Read more…
Martha Graham
At a time when film was often viewed as crude and vulgar entertainment, George Eastman was adamant that it could become a respectable art form. Between the projection of movie Read more…
Colonial Williamsburg
In the mid 1920s, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller and her husband, John Rockefeller Jr., were contacted by Dr. W. A. R. Goodwin, an instructor at the College of William & Mary Read more…
Samuel Kress Sprinkles Great Art Across America
Samuel Kress realized his philanthropic dreams by bringing great art to Main Street. He started with one five-and-dime shop in 1896, which he expanded to 264 stores by the 1930s. Read more…