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…
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…
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 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…
Philanthropic giant Julius Rosenwald (president of Sears, Roebuck) started the Julius Rosenwald Fund in 1917 “for the well-being of mankind,” but devoted much of its philanthropic power to improving the Read more…
For more than a century, a priceless collection of relics of the American Revolution has been slowly gathering, waiting for an appropriate home. Included are the tent George Washington slept Read more…
Self-made Chicago financier Richard Driehaus argues that “Americans deserve better buildings… . Architecture should be of human scale, representational form, and individual expression that reflects a community’s architectural heritage.” He Read more…
Rex Sinquefield steered himself from a Missouri orphanage to leadership of a major investment firm 30 years later, in the process developing some of the first index funds. Today his Read more…
Eli and Edythe Broad’s foundations have assets of some $2.4 billion. Lifelong philanthropists, one of their major areas of focus has been art, and specifically, increasing access to contemporary art. Read more…
The State Theater of New York was one of the original buildings in Lincoln Center, completed in 1964 as part of the urban renewal of New York City’s Lincoln Square. Read more…
Rick DeVos grew up in Grand Rapids as the grandson of the founder of Amway. He wanted to bring the arts to Grand Rapids in an unprecedented way. He initially Read more…
The Saint John’s Bible, commissioned by the Benedictine fathers of Saint John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota, and funded by 1,500 donors, is a completely handwritten and hand-illuminated Bible. It is Read more…
Only major centers like New York and Boston can support great museums. Such is the conventional wisdom, but Alice Walton didn’t buy it. She had a vision of creating a Read more…
Hedge-fund billionaire Bruce Kovner is sometimes refered to as “George Soros’s right-wing twin” due to his support of think tanks and public policy research on the conservative side of the Read more…
The oldest art museum and art school in America was built up through many decades of private support, particularly from Philadelphia business leaders. With George Clymer—a revered Pennsylvania merchant and Read more…
The Library of Congress was established by an official act in 1800 as a modest reference library for America’s legislators, and composed primarily of law books. The collection was destroyed Read more…
Thomas Jefferson sometimes argued that the earth belonged to the living and that each generation owed little to those before or after it. At times he lived his own life Read more…
An atheneum, in nineteenth-century parlance, was a cultural institution broadly devoted to art, books, science, history, and other fields, often broadly combined in a mix of library, gallery, scientific rooms, Read more…
James Smithson was a British scientist with no obvious connection to the United States. He had no family in the New World, had never visited, and had built his successful Read more…
Mount Vernon was the legacy of one great man. Preserving it was the work of many great women. The Mount Vernon estate had been in George Washington’s family since 1674. Read more…
On July 4, 1866, a number of well-to-do Americans in Paris are celebrating Independence Day with a fancy dinner. The group includes Mr. Bigelow, the American ambassador; Mr. Fox, assistant Read more…