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
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
Editors’ Note: In light of recent controversies over private contributions to rebuild the cathedral, recently damaged by fire, Matthew Ross discusses the long history of questions about charitable giving to Notre Dame. The billion dollars pledged to repair Notre Dame de Paris stoked a public crisis of conscience. Before the smoke had cleared over the gothic … Continue reading
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Editors’ Note: Anne Monier continues HistPhil‘s forum on Philanthropy and the State in France. Bringing a transnational lens to philanthropic giving in contemporary France (and with a particular focus on American Friends groups), Monier argues that the French State is playing a critical role in encouraging private funding of the country’s cultural institutions. Within this transnational … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: David Hammack reviews Organizations, Civil Society, and the Roots of Development, edited by Naomi R. Lamoreaux and John Joseph Wallis. For more than thirty years a growing literature has debated the origins of the market economy and the relation between the market and economic growth. Motivating this debate is the understanding, widely shared … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Nicolas Duquette highlights the history of the charitable contribution income tax deduction, in a preview of an upcoming article in Business History Review. The US charitable-contribution income-tax deduction marked its centennial in 2017. Relative to nearly every other aspect of the federal income tax, the workings of the deduction have changed little since its creation in … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Sarah Fields spotlights the need for more scholarly attention directed to the history of athletes’ philanthropy. Athletes are a complicated group. Sporting figures have long been celebrities, but they have not always been wealthy either as a class or as individuals. And yet they have long been involved in various ways with philanthropy and … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: As regular readers of HistPhil will know, we ordinarily publish the work of scholars who write, or reflect on, the history of philanthropy. We have occasionally published comments of practitioners or observers who have something important to say to an audience of those interested in the history of philanthropy. The following post is … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Kellie Carter Jackson makes the case for a fuller scholarly engagement with black abolitionists and their “profound understanding of the idea, experience and value of violence,” the subject of her new book, Force and Freedom. John Anderson was an escaped slave who fled to Canada. On July 5, 1861 the Toronto Globe recounted the speech he … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Reflecting on her new book, co-authored with Jeffrey Henig and Rebecca Jacobsen, Outside Money in School Board Elections: The Nationalization of Education Politics, Sarah Reckhow draws our attention to Los Angeles and details a new trend among mega donors in coordinating their philanthropic giving and political contributions. Reckhow argues that this behavioral shift … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Against the backdrop of Black History Month, Tyrone McKinley Freeman asks fellow historians of philanthropy to acknowledge black Americans’ history as philanthropists, reminding us that the current literature on the history of US philanthropy “does not fully capture the richness of African Americans’ giving, volunteering, associating, and advocating systems, models, behaviors and ways … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Rhodri Davies reflects on the contemporary relevance of Jo Freeman’s 1970 essay, “The Tyranny of Structurelessness.” The recent success of digitally-coordinated protest movements like Black Lives Matter and #MeToo has sparked a wave of interest in the potential for technology to transform the ways in which we organise. In particular, it has placed … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Examining how the animal protection and effective altruism movements have come to intersect, Garrett M. Broad explains the ways that these communities have contributed to each other, what conflicts have emerged, and what the future holds for ‘effective animal advocacy.” In this essay, Broad draws from an academic article he wrote, published this past December in Agriculture … Continue reading
