A Gift of Belief: Philanthropy and the Forging of Pittsburgh

A GIFT OF BELIEF

PHILANTHROPY AND THE FORGING OF PITTSBURGH

EDITED BY KATHLEEN W. BUECHEL

UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH PRESS

Published by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, Pa., 15260

Copyright © 2021, University of Pittsburgh Press

All rights reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

Printed on acid-free paper

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Cataloging-in-Publication data is available from the Library of Congress

ISBN 13: 978-0-8229-4680-9

ISBN 10: 0-8229-4680-7

Cover art: Félix de la Concha, painting from series One a Day: 365 Views of the Cathedral of Learning, 1999. Collection of the University of Pittsburgh. On permanent display at the University of Pittsburgh’s Alumni Hall. Reproduced with permission of the artist.

Cover Design: Joel W. Coggins

ISBN-13: 978-0-8229-8832-8 (electronic)

CONTENTS

PERIODS OF THE ARC OF PHILANTHROPY IN PITTSBURGH

Introduction

Kathleen W. Buechel

PART I

Sectarian Philanthropy and Particular Purpose Institutions, 1800–1889

1. The Arc of American Philanthropy and Pittsburgh’s Evolution

Gregory R. Witkowski and Dwight F. Burlingame

2. Matters of Faith

Loretta Sullivan Lobes

PART II

Classic Institution Building and Scientific Philanthropy, 1889–1945

3. Captains of Philanthropy?

Gregory R. Witkowski

4. Uplifting the Poor

Kathleen W. Buechel

5. The Gendered Dimensions of Women’s Philanthropy

Jessie B. Ramey

6. The Grassroots Safety Net

Jared N. Day

7. Generating Knowledge for Social Good

Mary Brignano

PART III

Postwar Expansion, Strategy, and the Challenge of Regional Relevance, 1946–1990

8. Conceiving and Conserving Environmental Assets

Susan M. Rademacher

9. The Art of Downtown Revitalization

Angelique Bamberg

10. Private Dollars for a Healthier Public

Andrew T. Simpson

PART IV

Entrepreneurism and Collective Action, 1990–Present

11. Advocacy and Public Policy

Tony Macklin

12. New Forms of Philanthropy

Robert E. Gleeson

Afterword | Weaving It Together

Kathleen W. Buechel

Acknowledgments

Contributors

Notes

Index

Hand-drawn map of Pittsburgh in 1902 by Thaddeus Mortimer Fowler.

Credit: Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division

PERIODS OF THE ARC OF PHILANTHROPY IN PITTSBURGH

INTRODUCTION

Kathleen W. Buechel

The Eden Hall Foundation has given us a gift that is absolutely transformative. They gave us nearly 400 acres, which makes us, by land, the largest institution in Allegheny County. And most importantly, they gave us the gift of belief in what we can do and in our vision.

ESTHER BARAZZONE

PRESIDENT OF CHATHAM UNIVERSITY (1992–2016),

DESCRIBING THE GIFT OF THE EDEN HALL FARM

The word philanthropy hearkens back to ancient roots. The Greeks captured its spirit with the word philanthropos, or a love of mankind. In modern times, the word conjures images of commercial titans making big civic bets and neighbors helping neighbors in need. Both images are true in Pittsburgh, where the civic lore skews more in favor of the titans narrative than the everyday actions of individuals marshaling their personal resources for the public good. Rarely have these two images met in one portrait. This book presents this more expansive story of how different forms of philanthropic activity shaped and forged the life of Pittsburgh.

For this book, Pittsburgh refers to the city itself and the surrounding communities integrally connected to its economic, environmental, social, and civic life. Three rivers bound this terrain, just as they formed Pittsburgh’s history. Philanthropy took these actors into urban enclaves, gritty mill towns, surrounding farmlands, and emerging suburbs. Some of this book unfolds before Allegheny City, the Northside, and other nearby communities were incorporated into Pittsburgh.

Thus defined, in nearly every community in Pittsburgh, evidence of philanthropy abounds. In a two-mile radius of Oakland, a brisk walk reveals Andrew Carnegie’s library, museum, concert, and lecture hall complex—all built on acreage once owned by Mary Schenley, whose own land gift formed one of the first public parks in Pittsburgh. On either side of that park stand two renowned universities, testimonials to philanthropists’ belief in the value of self-improvement and applied knowledge. At one of them, the University of Pittsburgh, a forty-two-story gothic Cathedral of Learning towers over Oakland. Intended as a beacon for the working-class children of Pittsburgh to see the elevating power of education, the tower’s completion relied on a philanthropic campaign that spanned the depths of the Great Depression, hardly an auspicious time to raise money.¹ Despite that timing, business leaders, philanthropists, and the very same children the tower was meant to inspire joined the $10 million effort. Local schoolchildren were asked to contribute a dime and buy a brick as Builders of the Cathedral. Richard B. Mellon, treasurer of the fund, signed their builders’ certificates. He and his brother Andrew W. Mellon, who was a secretary of the treasury, a son of Pittsburgh, and a benefactor of the National Gallery, contributed the fourteen-acre site on which the Cathedral was built. In all, ninety-seven thousand certificates of membership were issued, uniting commercial titans with philanthropic newcomers in what has been called one of the first modern public fundraising campaigns.

Just across the bridge from this spire sits Henry Phipps’s Victorian glass house conservatory, given to the people of Pittsburgh in 1893. In addition to exotic plants and destination exhibits, Phipps now boasts one of the world’s early net-zero living conservatories and sustainable classroom complexes. Adjacent to it all stands Carnegie Mellon University, whose origins aligned with Andrew Carnegie’s belief that working-class children needed practical technical skills to keep Pittsburgh running. Today, Carnegie’s technical institute leads globally in theater arts, computer science, and the technology driving autonomous vehicles. The university also bears the name of another local philanthropic family—the Mellons—who were intent on making Pittsburgh competitive through their investments in industry and civic improvement.

When Carnegie Mellon University presented Bill Gates with Andrew Carnegie’s office chair during a campus visit to dedicate the Gates Center for Computer Science in 2009, the event indelibly linked two prominent philanthropists with Pittsburgh. In successive centuries, both men altered the industrial landscape of their times, accumulating unparalleled wealth. Each committed himself to the strategic task of giving that money away through organized philanthropy. Each endowed this one university with significant investments and the imprimatur that comes with philanthropic grants. In doing so, each signaled a gift of belief in the institution and, by extension, in the city around it. That these two leaders should share a common chair on a stage in Pittsburgh is no accident of history, but rather a powerful symbol of how the voluntary giving of private resources intended for public good—philanthropy—played out in this one form over time in this same city.

But lingering on this illustration alone—of the symmetry of the garage tinkerer turned Microsoft founder and the immigrant bobbin boy’s rise to industrial power—confines Pittsburgh’s philanthropic story to its classic titan imagery. Philanthropy in Pittsburgh is more than the enduring charitable institutions and legacies of industrial families, important as they are. Philanthropy was and is the work of everyday Pittsburghers, every day, throughout the history of the region. African Americans, immigrants, religious congregations from many faiths, and men and women from all neighborhoods and walks of life all acted on their belief in the value of giving back or the imperative of lifting up their fellow citizens. Each gave from their personal resources in ways best suited to their circumstances and time. Thus, philanthropy became as diverse as the people in Pittsburgh who practiced it. Much of this activity went unrecognized then and even now, precisely because who they were and what they did does not fit with the classic iconography of philanthropy. We may not know their names or even their deeds, but the hallmarks of their philanthropic work form a distinctive if sometimes underreported dimension of the civic culture of the region.

Within that same two-mile radius of Oakland, this lesser-known philanthropy continues today at the region’s first hospital in Uptown, founded by the Sisters of Mercy in 1847 and moved there in 1848, and the Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children, built with private resources Jane Holmes and others offered the region. One block away from this school stands a former residential home for adolescents, owned until recently by Three Rivers Youth, successor to the Home for Colored Children, Girls Service Club and Termon Avenue Home for Children. That agency’s history and it origins illustrate how ordinary citizens mobilized philanthropy to address unmet needs, and the societal conditions they faced. A local minister, Reverend J. M. Fulton, sought refuge for a four-year-old African American girl he found wandering the streets of the Northside. The reverend came up short in the face of the whites-only orphanages of the time. One institution that he had helped to found just two years earlier, and run by his own church colleagues, denied admission to this girl and to Black children. Activist Julia Blair and the Women’s Christian Association stepped forward to help and founded the Home for Colored Children in 1880, beginning a legacy of care for underserved youth.²

Each of these actors, their reasons for giving, and their belief in the people and needs of this region expand the narrative of philanthropy in Pittsburgh. Each has a story whose threads form the warp that must be stitched together with the weft of the better-known titans to fully reveal the tapestry of philanthropy in this region. Until now, much of that story remained untold. This book widens the lens through which philanthropy is traditionally viewed in Pittsburgh. It provides new perspectives and introduces previously unseen players. The chapters take us beyond the classic continuum of immediate relief (charity) and long-term solutions (often associated with philanthropy) to reflect diverse forms of civic engagement in the region. Viewed together, the assembled chapters present philanthropy as a much more widespread and defining part of the civic culture of Pittsburgh.

To expand this story, twelve authors were invited to riff on the definition of philanthropy coined by Robert Payton: voluntary action for the public good. In organizing this volume, the authors looked at multiple ways in which philanthropy occurred in and around the city. Because it varied by donor, community need, or even locale, Pittsburgh’s philanthropy was a shuttle that threaded together the framework of betterment and service to the community at hand, regardless of economic station or ethnic, racial, gender, or religious identity. How the work was structured, how it aligned with philanthropy nationally at the same time, what it accomplished or failed to achieve all play their part in this book. While the chapters address different subjects and time periods, each author endeavored to address some central questions and reveal new threads about philanthropy in Pittsburgh.

Importantly, the authors tried to present what made these donors tick. What values and vision drove these individuals to become philanthropists? What judgments and preconceived ideas held them, and perhaps others, back? How did their strategies evolve over time? Did these donors operate alone, or work with others? Did they enlist the beneficiaries of their efforts in designing solutions or assume that as donors they knew best? What systems of power such as race, class, or gender were addressed or reinforced? Who was included in the quest for solutions or intentionally left out? Those omissions and the efforts of some Pittsburghers to overcome them are equally instructive. The authors explored whether there were tensions or conflicts inherent in the work and if they were ever resolved. They examined the means used and ends achieved. In many cases, the reader will need to decide how or if these facets all square. With so many skeins involved in the picture, the characteristics of Pittsburgh itself help to frame this story.

To capture these varied angles, the book focuses Robert Payton’s expansive framing on organized philanthropy in the region. It centers on its own definition of philanthropy: the organized and voluntary giving of private resources intended for the public good.

Italics punctuate the word intended for a reason in this definition. Philanthropy is fueled by intentions that vary by donor and circumstance. How do these donors see and seek to serve the public good? Donor intent offers important clues. Personal values, religious or community norms, experience, necessity, capacity, level of creativity, and worldview all inform donor intentions. This variance accounts for the plurality of the American philanthropic traditions, where voluntary action can follow a donor’s personal purview to fulfill perceived needs, self-proclaimed goals, and aspirations. The trick is in ensuring that personal intention and public good align. That is especially so today, when the tax privileges accorded to voluntary philanthropy have come under scrutiny for whether they serve a wider and more inclusive definition of public purpose and community need. In Pittsburgh, the donors’ worldview could lead to philanthropy that was proximate and personal or collective and communally driven. It could also lead to top-down, heavy-handed methods that excluded whole groups and circumstances. It could spark conflicts about who or what was worthy or unworthy of support. Wherever it led, the work started with intention and belief. Knowing these intentions casts light on the choices philanthropists made when looking at a range of opportunities before them. It can also help assess the effectiveness of the work and any unintended or negative consequences that resulted.

Donor choices ultimately shaped the spectrum of outcomes resulting from Pittsburgh’s philanthropy. As these pages illustrate, results could be immediate and close by: providing enough food or coal to get a family through hardship. They could be specific to a community: supporting marginalized groups neglected by mainstream agencies. They could be transformational: helping the region recover from industrial collapse or compete in a global economy. They could be empowering: meeting the childcare needs of working-class Black and white women in services of early twentieth-century orphanages. They could be petty, prescriptive, and paternalistic: the strains that occurred during the decades-long struggle to create a centralized, community-driven federation of charities. And they could reinforce the status quo, locking in systems of inequality and racism.

At its core, the volume looks at how individuals and institutions in Pittsburgh structured their philanthropy. By focusing on organized philanthropy, this volume explores the variety of ways that individuals, families, or groups structured and directed their voluntary private resources to nonprofit or civic institutions, organized causes, or community goals intended for the public good.

Understanding organized philanthropy in Pittsburgh requires some context for philanthropy in the country overall. This book follows the arc of American philanthropy as its backbone. It begins with an essay that contextualizes philanthropy in Pittsburgh within the broader history of charity in the United States. In the essays by scholars and practitioners that follow, this book charts the institutional types, philanthropic personalities, and intentions within Pittsburgh that aligned with, diverged from, and even lagged behind this broader national arc over time. The book adapts four periods identified by noted philanthropic historian David C. Hammack.³ In Pittsburgh, these eras often blend into and across one another thematically or organizationally. Despite this occasional convergence, each period’s contours offer a helpful outline to frame Pittsburgh’s story.

Early American philanthropy was largely a local and sectarian affair. Religious congregations or municipalities tended to their own needy. Neighbors looked after neighbors, caring for the sick, the infirm, or victims of misfortune. Women collected and distributed alms. They provided health care, shelter, and education. Thus, this first era of philanthropy in the nineteenth century is characterized by sectarian and particular-purpose institutions. Several chapters examine these dynamics. Philanthropy offered women a form of social engagement and civic participation long before they had the vote. While religious principles may have motivated some women to help their neighbors, others fused their charitable work with advocacy for social reforms such as the abolition of slavery or better services for vulnerable women. In the Black community, philanthropy was essential to the social fabric and self-reliance of the community. Excluded from most mainstream charity and other aspects of civic life by racism and prejudice, and energized by norms of care and self-sufficiency, different forms of philanthropy within the African American community helped people survive and build vital community assets. Across the spectrum of activities, acts of charity and relief addressed immediate, nearby needs in Pittsburgh. Informal forms of philanthropy for medical or financial emergencies, education, or child-rearing were critical. Institutions attempted to fill gaps or provide more structured, specific services.

For this book, the period of sectarian and particular-purpose philanthropy stretched from the early 1800s to 1889. A few examples illustrate the needs that philanthropists of this period tackled in Pittsburgh. In 1841, James Adams’s estate provided a bequest for coal to help the poor in Pittsburgh’s Fifth Ward. In 1860, Charles Brewer left the Brewers Fuel Fund to help the poor heat their homes. On the educational front, five trustees formed the Allegheny Observatory in 1860, eventually transferring the observatory and ten acres of surrounding land to the Western University of Pennsylvania, now the University of Pittsburgh, in 1865. Sectarian and special purpose institutions founded during this period helped specific populations. Cousins Jane Holmes—one Jane from Baltimore, the other Jane from Pittsburgh—raised money to help open the Home for Aged Protestant Women, later known as the Rebecca Residence, in 1871. Mary Peck Bond, an African American woman from an abolitionist family in Pittsburgh, solicited funds from 1877 to 1883 to purchase a home to house four elderly Black women; it opened in 1883. This haven would become the much larger Lemington Home in 1900.⁴

The second period ushered in a time of institution building and scientific philanthropy. It gave rise to a handful of foundations as they exist today. Scientific philanthropy and systems thinking guided a few of these institutions in their approach to problem-solving. Others reflected the unique imprint of their donors or the interests of later trustees. This period cuts across a wide swath of time, running from the late nineteenth to the middle of the twentieth century. Within this timeframe are two distinct lines of demarcation—the Great Depression and World War II. In 1933, the social and economic needs of the Great Depression overpowered private philanthropy and required intensive government intervention. From the New Deal through 1945, dramatic forces strained the ingenuity and resources of private philanthropy and government alike. Several private funders, especially in Pittsburgh, supported research and the creation of institutions dedicated to sorting out the root causes of, and possible solutions for, such economic and social dislocations.

During this period, the United States experienced dramatic transformation. The scale of industry, transportation, massive immigration, and urbanization altered the nation, and this region. Pittsburgh stood at the epicenter of these seismic changes. Its social fabric, environment, and infrastructure buckled under the burden. Philanthropy changed, too, reflecting these dynamics. Fortunes were accumulated in Pittsburgh, often on an unprecedented scale. Before, more modest wealth had created charitable legacies or philanthropic institutions. Now, an industrialist like Carnegie could fund a granite-clad museum, library, and concert hall complex in Oakland, or spawn thousands of public libraries across the country as part of his more extensive philanthropy.

The shift from religious orientations to more scientific means found their way into philanthropy. Universities grew, many founded without the religious origins of their predecessors. Think tanks and social science research institutions emerged to create the knowledge needed to tackle social, economic, and other problems. Social science methodology was applied to community issues such as poverty and public health. Social work became a profession, fostered by new courses offered at Pennsylvania College for Women (now Chatham University) in 1908 and later at the School of Social Work at the University of Pittsburgh. New philanthropic structures like the general-purpose foundations created by Henry Buhl in 1927 and the Falk family in 1929 appeared, facilitated by changes in state laws. Both would invest in research, pilot demonstration projects, and other approaches characteristic of scientific philanthropy. Both would elevate the role of data and analysis to solve social problems at their root cause rather than relying on charity to relieve immediate needs.

The Great Depression altered the scale of economic and social needs in Pittsburgh and the rest of the country. It brought the federal government into the space where local private charitable initiative had functioned predominantly until then. Programs such as Social Security, the Works Progress Administration, or Civilian Conservation Corps offered a safety net or work for the unemployed. However, philanthropic institution building continued at a healthy pace in Pittsburgh. Many groups helped their neighbors formally and informally through food assistance, rent parties, mutual aid societies, service clubs, and other organized means of support. In 1932, a private philanthropic initiative put Pittsburghers to work in public spaces when the Greater Pittsburgh Parks Association was founded. Ten citizens created this conservation organization to alleviate widespread unemployment and enhance the region’s natural resources; it later became the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy.

After 1945, everything changed again in America, in Pittsburgh, and within philanthropy. A third period of postwar expansion, strategy, and the challenge of regional relevance framed these changes. Foundation-funded advances in medicine and technology during the war led to civilian benefits afterward in energy, health care, and disease eradication. After the war, wages rose, lessening income inequality for a while. Tax policies favoring charitable deductions encouraged middle-class families to give more of this disposable income to charities. The nonprofit sector flourished as this expanded philanthropy funded thousands of new charities in the region. In the African American community, service clubs added advocacy for greater resources and social change to their collectivized philanthropic activity. The women volunteers who had inherited stewardship of the Harmarville Convalescent Home oversaw its transition into the Harmarville Rehabilitation Center. It would become a major center for rehabilitation and treatment during this era, from 1945 to 1990. Several enduring Pittsburgh foundations were also founded early in this third phase.⁵

The work of these and other new philanthropic entities can be seen today in the fourth historic period, the age of entrepreneurism and collective action. This period stretches from 1990 to the present. A culture of experimentation and collective action, along with expanded forms of capital, technology, philanthropic structure, and engagement, mark this current period.

The number of private and community foundations nationally grew to 111,889 by the end of 2019.⁶ Sales of private hospitals spawned new healthcare conversion foundations in the region. Additional foundations emerged during generational shifts within families or were sparked by the sale of a business. Foundation assets grew, fell during the great recession, and then rebounded. The Colcom, Allegheny, and Hillman Foundations increased their giving as the estates of benefactors added significantly to their assets. Philanthropists expanded policy activities and engagement with government entities. This increased scrutiny about the role of larger donors in setting agendas and exercising muscular philanthropy. Specific social action agendas appeared across a spectrum of institutions and ideas.

New structures facilitated growth in private philanthropy. Donor-advised funds at commercial investment firms like Fidelity or at local community foundations such as the Pittsburgh and POISE Foundations are one of the fastest-growing segments of the sector. Volunteerism expanded. More than 25 percent of American adults volunteered in 2017, offering an estimated 8.8 billion hours of community service that year.⁷ Technology also linked donors and needs in new ways, increasing methods for online philanthropy. Social media, crowdsourced funding, text message donations, and other vehicles invite cause-related philanthropy, bypassing traditional philanthropic means.

Social innovation and the use of market-based methods have gained currency in this period. Social entrepreneurs match a social mission with a commitment to iteration and innovation in tackling difficult problems.⁸ New forms of philanthropic capital are making their way into the social sector through impact investing tools such as below–market rate loans, and more traditional program-related investments.

1889

With these periods as a framework, the book focuses on organized philanthropy from 1889 onward to tell Pittsburgh’s story. Why set 1889 as a departure point for this subject when other forms of modern organized philanthropy were evident in America earlier? That year marks a moment when distinctions between organized charity and philanthropy began to crystallize. It signals a line of demarcation between earlier styles of charitably based, predominantly sectarian philanthropy and what many consider to be the advent of a modern focus on longer-term, secular, and root cause–oriented forms of philanthropy.

For this story, the year 1889 provides a metaphorical if not an absolute historical pivot point from sectarian charitable efforts to more institutional or collective forms of philanthropy in Pittsburgh. That was the year that Andrew Carnegie penned The Gospel of Wealth and the date when Mary Schenley donated the land for a public park. Southside Hospital was also established. Progressive Era politics were in play, and with them arguments about the role of public and private responsibility for the vulnerable and the provision of public goods to enhance the quality of life. Large-scale urbanization and immigration escalated, transforming and challenging the region’s ability to meet the needs of its residents. Industrialization left an indelible mark on Pittsburgh’s environment, society, and culture. The Gospel of Wealth captured a philosophy about the rationale, results, and reach of philanthropy. While controversial, its themes continue to reverberate across time. Numerous letters written over the past decade by signatories of the Giving Pledge, a promise by the world’s wealthiest individuals to commit at least half of their wealth to philanthropy while living or after their deaths, cite the influence of Carnegie’s essay on their decision and institutional and temporal choices.

The seeds of notable forms of modern, organized philanthropy were sown in Pittsburgh as the last decade of the nineteenth century dawned. Beyond the religious to secular shift noted earlier, in this period new ideas of scientific charity and scientific philanthropy became core values of social improvement. Systems and data steered business decisions about people and resources. These analytical forces influenced philanthropy to solve problems at their source, not ameliorate them with bandages. It was the time when the direct work of charity evolved into organized, reform-based, modern philanthropy. Several of these early philanthropic institutions still provide service—the Carnegie Hero Fund and Carnegie Libraries, for example. Others continue under different names or corporate forms, such as the FISA Foundation, Three Rivers Youth, the United Way of Southwestern Pennsylvania, and Mercy and Passavant Hospitals. Many more institutions have faded as needs changed or resources dwindled. Hundreds of stories of individual philanthropists remain untold, lost in the passage of time or overlooked in the traditional narrative of philanthropy in the region.

An early predecessor of the endowed private grantmaking or operating foundation appeared in Pittsburgh in 1904 with the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission, more than a century after the Franklin Trusts of Philadelphia and Boston in 1791 and a few decades after the Peabody gifts in 1867. Each of these is an early form of the endowed foundations whose assets generate a portion of grant-making revenues in perpetuity. Philanthropic foundations are featured here, given their essential role in Pittsburgh and America, as are other forms of philanthropy that marshaled private resources for the public good in this region. This book attempts to illustrate how these various forms coexisted, complemented, or stood apart from one another at key points in time.

By its very nature, this is not a comprehensive treatment of philanthropy in Pittsburgh. That would take volumes. Instead, in this work, the authors were invited to examine how individuals and featured groups defined, organized, and pursued philanthropy to enhance their view of the common good. The attention to organized philanthropy was an attempt to focus and narrow the otherwise wide-angle lens needed to examine this topic in Pittsburgh.

What is here may offer some surprises, but there is a rationale behind their inclusion. The essays were written with the hope that the resulting tapestry reveals the variety and variability within philanthropy in the region over time. Several of the chapters treat ventures that offer significant scale or impact in reach and results or present philanthropic approaches that others cite or seek to replicate as innovative (see chapter 8 on investments in greenspaces, chapter 9 on the development of downtown Pittsburgh, and chapter 10 on healthcare philanthropy). Some topics were included to represent a regional or local perspective on national trends in philanthropy operating at the same time (see chapter 4 on Associated Charities). Several chapters intentionally widen definitions of philanthropy and philanthropists (see chapter 5 on philanthropy by and for women and chapter 6 on philanthropy within the African American community). The titans are here, but they are placed in the context of their peers and the many others who also used their own, often far more precious resources to support this community. These pages illustrate the differences and interconnectedness of charity and philanthropy in Pittsburgh. They provide a window on philanthropic elements that have endured and evolved in the region. Hopefully, they reflect the unique qualities and actors of Pittsburgh. In many ways, Pittsburgh itself is the protagonist of this work.

Addressing what is not here is important, too. This book could not include every charity, donor, foundation, or philanthropic initiative worthy of coverage. Many deserve their own singular books. Some key milestones were not addressed here because they are examined extensively elsewhere, like the decision by three local foundations to cease funding the Pittsburgh Public Schools in the 1990s or the Early Childhood Initiative.⁹ The Pittsburgh Survey is referenced in several chapters, given its importance, but does not have its own chapter. A comprehensive volume already covers that topic.¹⁰ Examples of corporate philanthropy appear in several places rather than in one dedicated chapter. It, too, merits additional work.¹¹

Philanthropy in additional faith traditions, within immigrant groups, and in communities of more recently arrived Pittsburghers warrants attention. Deeper work on advocacy and group identity philanthropy is necessary, as is exploration of philanthropy within the Native American tradition and within communities of color. Further analysis of individual giving trends in Pittsburgh compared to other regions and the role of private foundations in that equation requires additional scholarship. Several chapters present how philanthropists extended the status quo rather than changed its underlying inequities. Others introduce criticisms of how the wealth was gained, and of who or what was harmed in the process. These themes have prompted greater reflection within the field of philanthropy today, and have led to suggestions about how this work can redress or repair damages done. Dialogue that engages underrepresented communities as donors, staff members, decision makers, and recipients of institutional philanthropy was gathering momentum as this book concluded. At the same time, the nation and the field of philanthropy were beginning to reckon with the legacy of structural racism. These systemic issues deserve far more current attention than the introduction present in this work.

Other topics were too contemporary for historical analysis, but the authors have come into the present period on some subjects when possible or necessary. In presenting philanthropy as more than money, the book illustrates the integral part it plays in Pittsburgh’s civic culture and community capital. There is ample room for additional scholarship on all of these topics.

The philanthropists featured on these pages provided both charity and philanthropy over time. They adopted various structures and organized means. They approached their work with different goals and time horizons. Whether they faltered, fell short, or exceeded in their intentions to secure the public good, these philanthropists appear united by a common belief in the value of investing in this region and the people who call it home. That is their gift of belief—a commitment to the very idea of Pittsburgh as a work in progress and their philanthropic offering to help forge and fulfill its promise.

PART I

SECTARIAN PHILANTHROPY AND PARTICULAR PURPOSE INSTITUTIONS, 1800–1889

A patient undergoes a procedure at Mercy Hospital’s operating room in 1894, located on Stevenson Street in Uptown, Pittsburgh. As Pittsburgh’s first hospital, Mercy Hospital offered medical care and a chance to recover, regardless of a patient’s creed or ability to pay. Travelers and those without families or the means to be cared for at home were treated. Four Sisters of Mercy died in the hospital’s first year as the sisters nursed typhoid fever patients. Founded by the Sisters of Mercy in 1847, a Catholic religious congregation of women newly arrived from Ireland, the hospital typifies sectarian and particular-purpose institutions and the role of women in forging them, in nineteenth-century Pittsburgh.

The Sisters of Mercy and their Protestant peers, the Passavant nurses, incorporated more modern concepts of sanitation and medical care in their hospitals, signaling the next philanthropic period of institution building and scientific philanthropy. Credit: Pittsburgh Regional Community Collection, Mercy Heritage Center, Sisters of Mercy of the Americas

1

THE ARC OF AMERICAN PHILANTHROPY AND PITTSBURGH’S EVOLUTION

Gregory R. Witkowski and Dwight F. Burlingame

Philanthropic giving is woven into the history of the United States, fostering religious, social, political, and economic ties and delineating boundaries as well. From the earliest period, the notion that all people could give was a core value of voluntary action for the public good. In this essay, we trace this mass participation in philanthropy as well as the rise of major donors with the power to make transformational gifts in the United States. We place these philanthropic efforts in the broader sociopolitical context and especially emphasize the role of the government in overseeing the third sector through both tax and public policy. While our focus is on national trends in these two strands of giving, we relate them where appropriate to developments in Pittsburgh that indicate the Steel City’s place in these trends. Pittsburgh was a city of innovation and national importance because of its rapid industrial development in the late nineteenth century and remained on the vanguard of social change thanks to the Pittsburgh Survey, Pittsburgh Renaissance, and contemporary transformations. In this way, Pittsburgh helped to shape and anticipate trends in American history so that our study fits well with national developments.

Within the context of this book, this chapter is meant to provide a narrative overview so that we will forgo a historiographical review. Nonetheless, we have found two important insights related to common interpretations. Like other historians, we indicate that many of the fundamental questions facing philanthropists and the nonprofit sector have remained the same even as nonprofit organizations have become engaged in more specific tasks across a greater variety of services. This can be seen especially in the ways that the first and last sections indicate new forms and ideas whereas the middle section focuses on philanthropy adapting to more active government provision for social needs. Our narrative differs from other historians in that we see wartime need for revenue as a key driver of changes in the tax code that had the unintended consequence of influencing charitable giving. Thus, government impact on the nonprofit sector began with tax policies formed largely with little thought about charitable giving.

This chapter is broadly chronological in its structure; the sections correspond with a periodization that separates major philanthropic practices that developed over time. Still, there is some chronological overlap across sections. The first section traces the origins of American philanthropy and its move toward a secular vision of giving. We indicate that Pittsburgh followed a trend toward scientific philanthropy seeking to solve problems at their root cause over charitable giving that ameliorates need. The next section focuses on government engagement with philanthropic giving, charities, and public need. This period of direct government engagement was followed by federal government disengagement through devolution that has left the nonprofit marketplace much more complicated in the contemporary period. The last section covers this contemporary space.

BREADTH, DIVERSITY, AND DEVELOPMENT IN ORGANIZED PHILANTHROPY

The first philanthropists in America certainly were the indigenous peoples of the continent. As various immigrant groups came to the new America, sharing of limited resources was a common act of survival and improving the welfare of the group. These informal arrangements were matched by the incorporation of the first philanthropic organizations before the formation of the United States, a trend toward formalization that continued throughout the nation’s history. Numerous types of organizations including religious institutions, mutual aid societies, trust funds, and general-purpose foundations all developed, with the first two reliant on mass participation while the latter two were often the best structure for major gifts. All of these were means for Americans to help their neighbors and themselves by engaging in many aspects of civic life. In this section, we briefly outline early collaborative efforts at philanthropy before moving on to the large-scale foundations that some of Pittsburgh’s wealthiest families created.

Average Americans turned to their churches and their broad list of philanthropic activities as a means to both give and receive schooling, medical care, and poverty relief. These could be divided along ethnic lines but did unite the communities engaged with them across class distinctions. Similarly, fraternal societies both integrated and separated communities. African American freedmen, many immigrants to the United States, and those migrating within the country often relied on fraternal societies or mutual benefit associations to create business connections but also to provide relief in times of need. Members paid a fee and dues but received health insurance and/or burial benefits at a time when few companies provided such opportunities. Even the poorest Americans wanted to avoid the public shame of an improper funeral and contributed to funeral funds.¹ In this way, many Americans participated in philanthropic activity as a means of both engaging public expectations and connecting to others. They were motivated by both communal and individual interest, or, as Alexis de Tocqueville put it, self-interest rightly understood.²

Women played a significant role in such philanthropic engagement. They embraced the production of social profit in the new nation long before the robber barons created foundations and universities bearing their names.³ They engaged in poor relief, education, and healthcare, as well as advocacy. Women led much of the mass philanthropy by creating what have alternately been called parallel structures or redemptive spaces. These included such things as settlement houses, girls’ clubs, kindergartens, and the like, which meant the needs of the disadvantaged as well as newcomers to the city.⁴ In Pittsburgh, and throughout the United States, women helped create the institutions that became the backbone of the social welfare system.⁵ Reform-minded women of the Progressive Era have often been referred to as the municipal housekeepers of the time, and philanthropic engagement provided a means for women to have a public voice even before they could vote. By advocating for children’s needs, women’s suffrage, public health, morality, and temperance, women became the moral mothers of American life.⁶

Women were also highly engaged in the abolitionism movement nationally. In Pittsburgh, the married couple Catherine and Martin Delaney were influential abolitionists. Martin was editor of the North Star, one of the first African American newspapers, and nationally known. He called for African Americans to end their reliance on white abolitionists and think for themselves. In Pittsburgh, he was one of the leaders of the Anti-Slavery Society, and together with his wife he helped the local Underground Railroad network function. While the couple left Pittsburgh in the 1850s, their early efforts in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County provided an example of Pittsburghers supporting free blacks with aid, which was especially dangerous after the Fugitive Slave Act made aiding a slave illegal even while in a free state. In Pittsburgh, and throughout the country, men and women banded together to help thousands of African Americans escape captivity and gain freedom in Canada. This private action for public benefit has often been left out of histories of philanthropy, but the Underground Railroad may have been the most extensive informal voluntary network in United States history.⁷

The issue of slavery ultimately sparked the Civil War, which generated wealth for Pittsburgh manufacturing firms and sparked the industrial growth of the second half of the twentieth century. In fact, Pittsburgh’s wealth grew primarily in heavy industry, with the steel manufacturing industry a clear leader. Andrew Carnegie, Henry Frick, Henry Phipps, and George Westinghouse are just a few of the men who made millions from heavy industry in Pittsburgh. Nationally, the Industrial Revolution produced untold wealth that led to the creation of general purpose foundations representing the philanthropic interests of one individual or family. The modern general purpose foundation brought together greater resources than had theretofore been available and defined their mission broadly enough to focus on, as the Rockefeller Foundation put it, the well-being of mankind.⁸ These organizations marked transitions in their mission to help humankind by finding solutions to societal problems (the scope of their efforts on a supraregional or national level), the resources they would bring to bear, and the effect they would ultimately have on the development of the nonprofit sector. While the first general purpose foundation was established by George Peabody in 1867, the early twentieth century marked the period of most active engagement by large general purpose foundations that supported public health initiatives, medical standards, and higher education, to name a few areas of deep engagement.⁹

In the context of Pittsburgh’s wealthy philanthropists, Andrew Carnegie formed his first foundation, the Carnegie Hero Fund, in Pittsburgh but chose to form his general purpose foundation, the Carnegie Corporation, in New York. Pittsburgh may have been most influenced by another New York–based organization, the Russell Sage Foundation, which was the primary funder of the Pittsburgh Survey.¹⁰ The first general purpose foundation established in the Steel City was set up much later by the retailer Henry Buhl in 1927. Buhl’s gift of more than $11 million certainly paled in comparison to the Carnegie Corporation’s $125 million endowment but was enough to rank it eleventh among foundations nationally at the time. Buhl suggested that the trustees aid the citizens of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County. The foundation donated almost $5.5 million in its first fourteen years to the county, creating the Buhl Planetarium and Institute of Popular Science and supporting educational efforts, scientific research in the natural and social sciences, and housing/community development.¹¹

One reason that foundations proved popular was to avoid taxes started during the Progressive Era. Pennsylvania, New York, and sixteen other states instituted estate and inheritance taxes in the 1890s, and these taxes became important sources of state revenue because of the great wealth that the Industrial Revolution had concentrated in the hands of the few. In many states, need for further revenue led to discussion of an income tax as well. The federal government passed an income tax in 1913 that exempted the middle class and taxed at a rate of between 1 and 7 percent depending on income levels. This tax on the wealthiest did not impact most Americans but was an important step as a peacetime tax designed to support government programs.¹²

Foundations, and other charitable organizations, sought to improve philanthropic practice and change the nature of charitable giving by focusing on what became known as scientific philanthropy. This approach emphasized knowledge and science as the basis for decision-making with the goal of better understanding social problems in order to address them at their root causes.¹³ One pertinent example of this movement toward scientific philanthropy is the Pittsburgh Survey, which included collaboration among the Russell Sage Foundation, the mayor’s office, the Kingsley House, New York settlement experts, and smaller Pittsburgh funders. The survey sought to understand living conditions and social problems in one of the most industrialized cities of the time. Begun in 1907 and thoroughly researched in 1908, essays were published serially, and six books were published from 1909 to 1914. These proved to be among the most significant pieces of scholarship on the working and living conditions of the Progressive Era.¹⁴

1.1 A Joseph Stella drawing, published in the Pittsburgh Survey, depicts the smoky conditions in Pittsburgh in the early twentieth century. Credit: Joseph Stella, Pittsburgh: Night, from The Pittsburgh District: Civic Frontage, edited by Paul Underwood Kellogg (New York: Survey Associates, Inc., 1914)

The results were not complimentary to Pittsburgh. Burgeoning steel and coke production facilities created a massive influx of workers who could not be properly housed, one negative consequence of industrialization. According to the survey, the working class had an altogether incredible amount of overwork that only resulted in low wages and the destruction of family life, not in an imaginary or mystical sense, but by the demands of the day’s work. The survey noted that workers were not helped by the persistence of archaic social institutions, including the unregenerate charitable institution.¹⁵ Further, the survey declared that Pittsburgh’s charitable institutions did not sufficiently collaborate to create efficiencies. The Pittsburgh Survey noted that there were six private relief societies serving more than 1,000 families and also numerous smaller efforts. For instance, out of the 422 churches that received the survey, 61 responded, with 60 reporting that they provided material relief to parishioners, although there were many duplications and inefficiencies because of insufficient coordination.¹⁶

1.2 Abolitionist, publisher, and advocate Martin Delany depicted circa 1865. With his wife Catherine, he was instrumental in organizing Underground Railroad activities in Pittsburgh. Credit: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.

Whereas Buffalo had in 1877 formed a charity organization society, designed to both streamline distribution and oversee charitable gifts, Pittsburgh took more than thirty years to match their neighbors with a similar organization. The Associated Charities, established in 1908, was Pittsburgh’s first major effort to systematically register, evaluate, and manage cases of need.¹⁷ In fact, this effort started as the national trend was already moving toward a model of professionally trained paid social service workers instead of the voluntary amateur whose work was done in settlement houses or by volunteer visitors such as those organized by the Charity Organization Society.¹⁸ Still, the Associated Charities played a vital role in organizing the response to need. As one contemporary, George Hodges, described, the Associated Charities were different than relief organizations in that they were designed to provide advice and not material, much like the way a physician and a pharmacist differ. Hodges provided insight into the mindset of the period when he declared that, similar to how a physician worries about a patient getting addicted to drugs, the wise philanthropist worries about dependency on alms and therefore prescribes as little as possible.¹⁹

The Pittsburgh Survey revealed that collaboration among local funders, major foundations, and governments could work but were certainly not guaranteed to. Another philanthropic innovation designed to bring together community interests and wealth distribution was the community foundation, first formed in neighboring Cleveland in 1914. While Pittsburgh followed this trend, launching a community foundation in 1919, it ceased operation in 1931. A new community foundation was only formed again in Pittsburgh in 1945. Other cities (e.g., Cincinnati) experienced similar problems with community foundations in part because they were based on the trust form at banks, a relationship that was costly during the Great Depression, slowing growth of