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Conferences / Philanthropy and Historical Research

Announcing the Jewish Philanthropy Research Initiative

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Editors’ Note: The organizers of a new research initiative in Jewish philanthropy announce its inauguration. In a newly published study that draws on the first comprehensive data set of U.S.-based Jewish philanthropic organizations, Hanna Shaul Bar Nissim and Mathew Brookner show that such organizations gave more than $46 billion in grants in the period between … Continue reading →

Common Enemies: Why Americans Favor Single-Disease Campaigns
New Works in the Field

Common Enemies: Why Americans Favor Single-Disease Campaigns

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Editors’ Note: Rachel Best discusses the long history of single disease charitable campaigns in the United States, the subject of her new book, Common Enemies: Disease Campaigns in America (Oxford, 2019). In October, pink ribbons decorate everything from sneakers to buckets of fried chicken, and hundreds of thousands of people participate in walks or runs to … Continue reading →

More Lore than Law: The Dartmouth College Case and the Myth of the Purely Private College
Dartmouth College v. Woodward

More Lore than Law: The Dartmouth College Case and the Myth of the Purely Private College

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Editors’ Note: John Thelin continues HistPhil‘s forum marking the bicentennial of the Dartmouth College case. This post is an excerpt from his book, A History of American Higher Education, published as a new third edition in 2019 by the Johns Hopkins University Press. For Dartmouth College and Daniel Webster, 1819 was a very good year.  It was no less than … Continue reading →

Not Just a Contract case: Dartmouth College v. Woodward’s Law-of-the-Land Legacy
Dartmouth College v. Woodward

Not Just a Contract case: Dartmouth College v. Woodward’s Law-of-the-Land Legacy

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Editors’ Note: Jane Manners continues HistPhil’s forum marking the bicentennial of the Dartmouth College case. Dartmouth College v Woodward is, as every first-year law student knows, a contract case. Its canonical holding distinguished public corporations from private ones and established that where private corporations are concerned, a legislative charter is a contract, protected from legislative … Continue reading →

The Dartmouth College Case, the Contract Clause, and the Creation of the Private Sector
Dartmouth College v. Woodward

The Dartmouth College Case, the Contract Clause, and the Creation of the Private Sector

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Editors’ Note: Mark D. McGarvie continues HistPhil’s forum marking the bicentennial of the Dartmouth College v. Woodward case. The material in this post is adapted from several previously published works by McGarvie, including One Nation Under Law: America’s Early National Struggles to Separate Church and State (2004); Law and Religion in American History: Public Values and Private … Continue reading →

From Public Servant to Private Business: Dartmouth College and the Transformation of the Corporation
Dartmouth College v. Woodward

From Public Servant to Private Business: Dartmouth College and the Transformation of the Corporation

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Editors’ Note: Evelyn Atkinson continues HistPhil‘s forum marking the bicentennial of the Dartmouth College v. Woodward case. In 1853, the Supreme Court of Ohio declared that the case of Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819) had become “a subterfuge for fraud and a means of shielding corporations from responsibility and correction for the abuse of their corporate … Continue reading →

How Dartmouth College Commemorated the Bicentennial of the Dartmouth College Case
Dartmouth College v. Woodward

How Dartmouth College Commemorated the Bicentennial of the Dartmouth College Case

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Editors’ Note: Robert Bonner continues HistPhil’s forum commemorating the 200th anniversary of Dartmouth College v. Woodward with a post on how Dartmouth College marked the occasion. Students at Dartmouth College launch the calendar year with two extravaganzas: a snowy Winter Carnival followed by a glitzy “Dartmouth Idol” talent competition. In 2019, a different sort of … Continue reading →

The Dartmouth College Decision as a Pillar of the Regulatory State
Dartmouth College v. Woodward

The Dartmouth College Decision as a Pillar of the Regulatory State

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Editors’ Note: Naomi Lamoreaux continues HistPhil’s forum marking the 200th anniversary of the Dartmouth College v. Woodward decision. In 1819 the U.S. Supreme Court announced in Dartmouth College v. Woodward that a charter granted by the state to form a private corporation was a contract protected by Article I, Section 10 of the federal constitution:  “No State … Continue reading →

Public Men and Private Corporations: Dartmouth v Woodward and the Development of U.S. Civil Society
Dartmouth College v. Woodward

Public Men and Private Corporations: Dartmouth v Woodward and the Development of U.S. Civil Society

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Editors’ Note: This post from Johann Neem begins HistPhil‘s online forum marking the 200th anniversary of the Supreme Court case Dartmouth College v. Woodward, a landmark decision in shaping the legal landscape of U.S. civil society. In this forum, a corps of distinguished scholars reflect on the complex legacy of Dartmouth v. Woodward, in the … Continue reading →

How the Right Won the States: A Review of Hertel-Fernandez’s State Capture
New Works in the Field

How the Right Won the States: A Review of Hertel-Fernandez’s State Capture

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Editors’ Note: Henry Farrell reviews Alexander Hertel-Fernandez’s State Capture: How Conservative Activists, Big Businesses, and Wealthy Donors Reshaped the American States – and the Nation. Read Hertel-Fernandez discuss his own research on ALEC and conservative “state capture” in the HistPhil forum on conservative philanthropy. A couple of months ago, Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and Rob O’Dell wrote … Continue reading →

Wildcat Christianity and the Oil-fueled Politics of Corporate and Nonprofit Patronage In the Middle East
New Works in the Field

Wildcat Christianity and the Oil-fueled Politics of Corporate and Nonprofit Patronage In the Middle East

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Editors’ Note: Darren Dochuk introduces the concept of “wildcat Christianity” and discusses the relationship between evangelical Christianity, southwestern petroleum, and support of Israel, a subject addressed in his new book, Anointed With Oil: How Christianity and Crude Made Modern America (Basic Books). “God, Gas, and Cash,” a recent article by Alex Kane and Nashwa Bawab in … Continue reading →

Native Wisdom: A Review of Edgar Villanueva’s Decolonizing Wealth
New Works in the Field / Philanthropy

Native Wisdom: A Review of Edgar Villanueva’s Decolonizing Wealth

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Editors’ Note: Michael Seltzer reviews Edgar Villanueva‘s new book, Decolonizing Wealth. In his book, The Wretched of the Earth, published in 1961, Frantz Fanon noted what he considered to be the necessary conditions for the overthrow of colonialism: “To tell the truth, the proof of success lies in a whole social structure being changed from … Continue reading →

Fairbairn vs. Fidelity: The Lawsuit that Reflects rising concerns about the DAF boom
Philanthropy in the News

Fairbairn vs. Fidelity: The Lawsuit that Reflects rising concerns about the DAF boom

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Editors’ Note: Brian Mittendorf outlines the stakes of the recently filed lawsuit, Emily and Malcolm Fairbairn vs. Fidelity Charitable, and discusses how it reflects mounting concerns about the rise of donor-advised funds. The New York Times’ Paul Sullivan recently highlighted an ongoing and prominent lawsuit between a wealthy couple and their financial advisors. The lawsuit … Continue reading →

Corporate patronage for the arts in France in the 1980s and 1990s : a matter of the State
Philanthropy and the State in France

Corporate patronage for the arts in France in the 1980s and 1990s : a matter of the State

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Editors’ Note: Closing HistPhil‘s forum on Philanthropy and the State in France, Sabine Rozier underscores the central role played by the French State in encouraging philanthropy in France. More specifically, Rozier argues that the “French philanthropic renewal in the 1980s and 1990s” was less “the expression of the awakening of a ‘civil society’ that would have … Continue reading →

Walmart Heirs Shift from Red to Purple: The Evolving Political Contributions of the Nation’s Richest Family
Current Events and Philanthropy

Walmart Heirs Shift from Red to Purple: The Evolving Political Contributions of the Nation’s Richest Family

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Editors’ Note: Leslie K. Finger and Sarah Reckhow write on the changing nature of Walton family political contributions. In the 2012 election cycle, 72 percent of partisan federal and state election contributions from family members serving on the board of the Walton Family Foundation supported Republican candidates and committees. Four years later, in the 2016 … Continue reading →

Philanthropy without a State? On the Importance of Thinking Locally or what 19th century French History Can Teach Us
Philanthropy and the State in France

Philanthropy without a State? On the Importance of Thinking Locally or what 19th century French History Can Teach Us

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Editors’ Note: Continuing HistPhil‘s forum on Philanthropy and the State in France, Matthieu Brejon de Lavergnée illustrates “how the French State—throughout much of the nineteenth century—relied on public and private treatment of poverty.”   « Nous voyons les femmes du monde, même les plus élégantes et les plus frivoles, travailler sans cesse pour les pauvres ; elles brodent, elles … Continue reading →

Poll Power, Money Power: The Voter Education Project, Philanthropy, and the Movement for the Ballot in the American South
New Works in the Field

Poll Power, Money Power: The Voter Education Project, Philanthropy, and the Movement for the Ballot in the American South

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Editors’ Note: Evan Faulkenbury introduces his new book on the Voter Education Project, Poll Power: The Voter Education Project and the Movement for the Ballot in the American South. Without money, the civil rights movement would not have had the critical resources it needed to defeat Jim Crow at the ballot box. This may be … Continue reading →

“The Capable Man”—The Philanthropic Man—in 19th Century France
Philanthropy and the State in France

“The Capable Man”—The Philanthropic Man—in 19th Century France

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Editors’ Note: Continuing HistPhil’s forum on Philanthropy and the State in France, Nagisa Mitsushima discusses philanthropy and electoral democracy during the first half of the 19th century in France. In dialogue with French studies on philanthropy, Mitsushima’s historical research “proposes to transform the view that we usually take on philanthropy, by shifting our analysis of … Continue reading →

A Social Construction of Public Interest: The “Reconnaissance d’Utilité Publique” of Associations and Foundations by the Council of State (1870-1914)
Philanthropy and the State in France

A Social Construction of Public Interest: The “Reconnaissance d’Utilité Publique” of Associations and Foundations by the Council of State (1870-1914)

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Editors’ Note: Chloé Gaboriaux continues HistPhil’s forum on Philanthropy and the State in France. In this essay, Gaboriaux analyzes “how members of the French Council of State, in charge of authorizing the incorporation of nonprofit organizations, reasoned about the general value of foundations and associations at a time (1870-1914) when the young Republic was defining a … Continue reading →

INTRODUCTION: Philanthropies and State Prestige in France, 19th-20th Centuries
Philanthropy and the State in France

INTRODUCTION: Philanthropies and State Prestige in France, 19th-20th Centuries

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Editors’ Note: Nicolas Duvoux launches HistPhil’s forum on Philanthropy and the State in France. De-centering U.S. exceptionalism in the history of philanthropy, this forum provides a historical and present-day context to philanthropy in France. For HistPhil readers, this collection of essays furthermore provides an opportunity to analyze vital questions at the heart of civic life: … Continue reading →