Editors’ Note: Last August, I shared with readers my syllabus for a graduate seminar on the history of philanthropy. In a similar spirit, I am including below an undergraduate version of that class which I will be teaching this fall. Of course, and as always, please feel free to reach out with feedback and suggestions both on …
Editors’ Note: Sarah Flew continues HistPhil‘s forum on anonymous giving. This post is based on Flew’s article, “Unveiling the Anonymous Philanthropist: Charity in the Nineteenth Century,” Journal of Victorian Culture 20, issue 1 (March 2015), 20-33. Whilst researching philanthropy in London in the nineteenth century, I became fascinated by the small proportion of individuals who …
Editors’ Note: Brian D. Goldstein introduces his recent work, The Roots of Urban Renaissance: Gentrification and the Struggle Over Harlem (Harvard, 2017). The January 29, 1977 front page of the New York Amsterdam News offered grim news to any Harlemites hoping to own part of the land they inhabited. “Harlem Commonwealth Council Fails to Sell Shares to Residents,” …
Editors’ Note: David Callahan adds to HistPhil‘s forum on anonymous giving. The world of philanthropy is becoming less transparent, and that’s not a good thing. Recent years have seen the rapid growth of a shadow giving system that funnels billions of dollars in gifts in ways that leave no fingerprints. The disclosure rules that have governed …
Editors’ Note: Sean Parnell continues Histphil‘s forum on anonymous giving, making the affirmative, historical case. Modern discussions of anonymous philanthropic giving tend to focus on supposed malefactors such as the libertarian brothers Charles and David Koch, progressive George Soros, or the general threat that so-called “dark money” poses to our free society.[1] Often lost in these …
Editors’ Note: HistPhil takes a brief break from the forum on anonymous giving for a post from Bruce Kimball on the path-breaking Harvard Endowment Fund drive. It is adapted from Bruce A. Kimball, “The First Campaign and the Paradoxical Transformation of Fundraising in American Higher Education, 1915-1925.” Teachers College Record 116, no. 7 (2014): 1-44. In September 2013 …
Editors’ Note: Gregg Gardner adds more deep historical background to HistPhil’s forum on anonymous giving. It is commonly held that Judaism holds anonymous giving as the highest form of charity – a characteristically Jewish form of philanthropy championed by the preeminent philosopher Moses Maimonides (1135–1204 CE). Yet the truth is more complicated: anonymous giving was directed …
Editors’ Note: The Atlantic Philanthropies’ Christopher G. Oechsli continues HistPhil’s forum on anonymous giving. There was a time, and not that long ago, when our strict adherence to operating anonymously would have made it impossible for The Atlantic Philanthropies to participate in a forum like this. In fact, for our first 15 years, we didn’t publicly …
Editors’ Note: Adam Davis continues HistPhil’s forum on the history of anonymous giving with some deep historical background. During the first millennium and a half of Christian history, there was a fundamental tension between the ideal of anonymous charity on the one hand, which by definition was not done out of vainglory, and on the other …
Editors’ Note: This post, by HistPhil co-editor Benjamin Soskis, introduces HistPhil‘s forum on the history of anonymous giving, which will be featured on the site over the next few weeks. To get a sense of the ambiguous place that anonymous giving now occupies within contemporary attitudes towards philanthropy, take a look at a striking passage in …
Editors’ Note: Maoz Brown previews his article, “The Moralization of Commercialization: Uncovering the History of Fee-Charging in the U.S. Nonprofit Human Services Sector,” which was recently published in Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly. Finances are often viewed as vital signs in the nonprofit sector, as in the much-discussed (and much-lamented) case of using administrative expense …
Editors’ Note: This post, by Caroline Reeves, is adapted from a paper presented at the “Empires of Charity” conference, held at the University of Warwick in March 2017 and is part of Reeves’ larger project on the history of Chinese charitable giving. The Last Bastion of Cultural Imperialism In 2009, I was invited to celebrate the …
Editors’ Note: Nicholas Tampio, author of the recently published Common Core: National Education Standards and the Threat to Democracy, discusses the role the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation played in the establishment of Common Core. I recently gave a talk at a local bookstore about my new book on the Common Core, a set of … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Paul Schervish writes on the dangers of researchers equating generosity with formal charitable giving. Just peruse studies and media commentary on charitable giving and you will see how often one financial group, region, gender, or race is called more “generous” than another on the basis of how much formal charitable giving that group carries … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Sarah B. Snyder discusses her new book, From Selma to Moscow: How Human Rights Activists Transformed U. S. Foreign Policy. Americans and human rights have had a long, interconnected history. After all, Thomas Jefferson used the language of “rights” in his 1776 Declaration of Independence. And, Americans were active in shaping human rights commitments … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Robert Grimm and Nathan Dietz discuss the findings of the new report from the University of Maryland’s Do Good Institute, “Good Intentions, Gap in Action,” on youth civic engagement. Over the past several weeks, the students of Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida have proved that young people have the civic … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: HistPhil co-editor Maribel Morey reviews Shomari Wills’s Black Fortunes: The Story of the First Six African Americans Who Escaped Slavery and Became Millionaires (New York: Amistad, HarperCollins Publishers, 2018). Detailing a history of the “first cohort of black millionaires” in the United States, journalist Shomari Wills begins Black Fortunes by correcting the popular myth that … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Ronald A. Brown provides a history of charitable gift annuities, based on his new book, A History of Charitable Gift Planning: How Gift Annuities Shaped American Philanthropy (1830-1959). In the ecosystem of American philanthropy, money is not only given, it is actively raised. There are only a few major histories of charitable fundraising, … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Previewing his new book Democracy in Exile: Hans Speier and the Rise of the Defense Intellectual (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2018), Daniel Bessner places particular attention on the work’s engagement with philanthropic history. In the last several decades, the history of the social sciences and philanthropy has experienced something of a renaissance. Books and articles by … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Elizabeth Shermer joins HistPhil‘s forum on the history of conservatism and philanthropy. Private giving has been instrumental in American higher education’s development. Especially before state and federal governments started spending more on college and universities during the Cold War, philanthropy served as a major source of financial support for those institutions. Yet conservative donors, especially … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Activist Leah Hunt-Hendrix discusses the history of the idea of “solidarity” and how it has shaped her own philanthropic projects, including the Solidaire funders’ network. The words we use matter. When we employ terms like “altruism” or “effective” or “venture” we are locating ourselves in specific schools of thought, which include ideas about good and bad, … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Heather D. Curtis discusses her new book, Holy Humanitarians: American Evangelicals and Global Aid. On September 2, 2015, the body of 3-year-old Alan Kurdi washed up ashore near the Turkish resort of Bodrum. Originally from Damascus, the boy and his family were refugees from the Syrian civil war seeking to reach the Greek … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Dan Royles guest-edits the following post, which features five perspectives on the HIV/AIDS History Collaboratory, hosted by the Rockefeller Archive Center. In June 2017 the Rockefeller Archive Center (RAC) convened a meeting of scholars, grantmakers, and AIDS activists to discuss new directions for the histories of HIV/AIDS and the ways that a better … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: HistPhil‘s forum on philanthropy in Sweden closes with a contribution from Johanna Palmberg and Pontus Braunerhjelm. The two authors describe shifting intellectual currents in Sweden (and Europe more broadly) which are making it increasingly favorable for philanthropy and conclude by suggesting ways for philanthropic giving to play an increasingly greater role in European societies … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Noomi Weinryb and Jaakko Turunen continue HistPhil‘s forum on philanthropy in Sweden. In the historical context of the Swedish welfare state, we will here discuss philanthropy as an economic expression of pluralism, which may be interpreted as historically antithetical to democratic practice in Sweden. We will hypothesize what an expansion and development of philanthropy could … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Continuing HistPhil’s forum on philanthropy in Sweden, Johan Vamstad suggests that Swedes’ longstanding resistance to tax incentives for charitable giving is rooted in a particularly Swedish distinction between the public and the private. Sweden is one of very few countries in the world that does not offer its citizens any tax incentives for charitable giving, something … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Providing a sweeping history of civil society in Sweden, Lars Trägårdh continues our forum on philanthropy in Sweden. Based on this historical lens, Lars explains the relative novelty of philanthropy in Sweden and concludes by suggesting the types of philanthropy-state relations to which Swedes likely will be most receptive. Compared with most other … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: This HistPhil forum on philanthropy in Sweden opens with an essay by HistPhil co-editor Maribel Morey. It will be followed by contributions from Lars Trägårdh, Johan Vamstad, Noomi Weinryb, Johanna Palmberg, Pontus Braunerhjelm, and Jaakko Turunen. Though planned for some months, we are publishing this forum right as a national conversation in the United … Continue reading
Editors’ Notes: This week, HistPhil begins to wrap up its forum on the history of conservative philanthropy with a post from Andrew Jungclaus. In the period of American history I study—1913 to 1969, a stretch bookended by two pieces of tax legislation dictating the terms under which philanthropic foundations would be organized and run—conservative philanthropy … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Daniel Schmidt and Michael Hartmann continue HistPhil’s forum on conservative philanthropy. The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation in Milwaukee has generally been considered by both its allies and (grudgingly) by its foes one of the most-effective conservative philanthropies in the United States. This recognition has been due in large part to the grantmaking roles … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: David Walsh continues HistPhil‘s forum on the history of conservative philanthropy. How should historians—and especially historians of philanthropy—understand the far right in American history? Is the far right simply a lunatic fringe that has, occasionally, managed to briefly coalesce to make an actual impact in American politics? Or have far right politics enjoyed … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Jefferson Decker continues HistPhil‘s forum on the history of conservative philanthropy. In 1973, a group of California lawyers left the administration of Gov. Ronald Reagan to form a new sort of policy organization: a non-profit, “public interest” legal foundation staffed entirely by conservatives. Calling themselves Pacific Legal Foundation, these attorneys sought to defend … Continue reading
