Altman, Benjamin (12 July 1840–07 October 1913), merchant and art collector, was born in New York, New York, the son of Philip Altman, a dry goods merchant, and Cecilia (maiden name unknown). His father, a Jewish immigrant from Bavaria who had come to the United States in 1835, operated a small dry goods store named Altman & Co. on Third Avenue near Tenth Street. Young Altman worked with his brother Morris in his father’s shop in the afternoons. He left school at the age of twelve to work there full time and later held a variety of sales jobs with other dry goods shops in New York City and in Newark, New Jersey. When his father died in 1854, Altman and his brother took over the store, changing its name to Altman Bros. The business prospered, and by 1865 they moved to Third Avenue and Tenth Street; they moved again to a larger building on Sixth Avenue between Eighteenth and Nineteenth Streets in 1870. Morris left the business but remained a partner, and when he died in 1876, Altman became sole owner, later changing the name of the firm to B. Altman & Co....
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Altman, Benjamin (1840-1913), merchant and art collector
Dennis Wepman
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Harkness, Rebekah West (1915-1982), philanthropist
Lili Cockerille Livingston
Harkness, Rebekah West (17 April 1915–17 June 1982), philanthropist, was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of Allen Tarwater West, a stockbroker, and Rebekah Semple. The youngest of three children, Rebekah grew up surrounded by the amenities of a prominent St. Louis family. A vivacious, headstrong teenager with a penchant for the arts, she obeyed but did not agree with her father’s request that she resign from a St. Louis Opera production of ...
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Karolik, Maxim (1893-1963), art collector and philanthropist
Carol Troyen
Karolik, Maxim (1893–20 December 1963), art collector and philanthropist, was born in Bessarabia, Russia (now Rumania), the son of Orthodox Jewish parents. He was trained as an operatic tenor at the Academy in St. Petersburg and performed with the Petrograd Grand Opera Company as well as in opera houses in England and Italy. Karolik came to the United States about 1922 and made his New York debut in 1924 in a recital at Aeolian Hall. He performed to moderate acclaim until the early 1930s, when unspecified health problems caused him to abandon his singing career....
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Lewisohn, Irene (1892-1944), theater patron and practitioner and philanthropist
Anne Fletcher
Lewisohn, Irene (05 September 1892–04 April 1944), theater patron and practitioner and philanthropist, was born in New York City, the daughter of Rosalie Jacobs and Leonard Lewisohn, a German-Jewish immigrant who made his fortune in the mining and processing of copper and other minerals. The deaths of Lewisohn’s parents before she was ten years old left her older sister Alice and her with considerable wealth—and the social burden of such wealth. The daughter of a philanthropist, Lewisohn was impressed by the Henry Street Settlement, one of her father’s causes. After attending the Finch School in New York, she studied dance independently and eventually found her calling in the unique combination of social service and the arts....
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McCormick, Edith Rockefeller (1872-1932), philanthropist, socialite, and patron of the arts and psychiatry
Thomas Winter
McCormick, Edith Rockefeller (31 August 1872–25 August 1932), philanthropist, socialite, and patron of the arts and psychiatry, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the daughter of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., an industrialist, and Laura Celestia Spelman. She spent her youth in Cleveland and New York City, where the family moved in 1880. In addition to attending the Rye Female Seminary, Edith received private tutoring and learned to play the cello. Unusually gifted and endowed with a strong scholarly inclination, she had mastered three foreign languages by the time she was ten years old....
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Mellon, Paul (1907-1999), philanthropist, art collector, horse breeder, and conservationist
Richard Harmond
Mellon, Paul (11 June 1907–01 February 1999), philanthropist, art collector, horse breeder, and conservationist, was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Andrew W. Mellon, a banker, secretary of the treasury (1921–1932), and ambassador to Britain (1932–1933), and Nora McMullen Mellon. His parents divorced when he was five and his sister Ailsa was eleven. Under the terms of the divorce settlement, the children were to spend eight months with their father and four months with their mother, who was living in England. (When they reached the age of fourteen, the children were to decide how long they wished to stay with either parent.) As a child, Paul was afraid of his father, whom he described in his autobiography, ...
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Mellon, Paul (1907-1999)
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Post, Marjorie Merriweather (1887-1973), business owner, entertainer, and philanthropist
Sally Clarke
Post, Marjorie Merriweather (15 March 1887–12 September 1973), business owner, entertainer, and philanthropist, was born in Springfield, Illinois, the daughter of Charles William Post, founder of Postum Cereal Company, and Ella Letitia Merriweather. After several of Charles Post’s entrepreneurial ventures failed, his family entered him in a sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan, in 1891. The sanitarium’s doctor, ...
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Rockefeller, Abby Aldrich (1874-1948), philanthropist
Bernice Kert
Rockefeller, Abby Aldrich (26 October 1874–04 April 1948), philanthropist, was born Abby Greene Aldrich in Providence, Rhode Island, the daughter of Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich and Abby Pearce Chapman. After establishing himself in the mercantile life of Rhode Island, her father was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1881 he took his seat in the U.S. Senate, where he became a powerful chair of the Finance Committee. His political skills and his passion for art were his legacy to Abby....
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Rose, Billy (1899-1966), songwriter, show business impresario, and philanthropist
William Stephenson
Rose, Billy (06 September 1899–10 February 1966), songwriter, show business impresario, and philanthropist, was born on the Lower East Side of New York City, the son of David Rosenberg, a button salesman, and Fannie Wernick. He was born William Samuel Rosenberg, according to most biographical sources, though one source states he adopted that name in school after being born Samuel Wolf Rosenberg. He grew up in the Bronx and attended public schools there, winning junior high school medals for sprinting and English. Medals and honors were important as proofs of stature and worth to Rose, who never grew taller than five feet three inches. In the High School of Commerce, he became an outstanding student of the Gregg system of shorthand, winning first a citywide competition (1917) and then a national competition (1918). In 1918 he left high school shortly before graduation to become head of the stenographic department of the War Industries Board, headed by ...
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Rosenwald, Lessing Julius (1891-1978), art and book collector and philanthropist
Leonard Dinnerstein
Rosenwald, Lessing Julius (10 February 1891–24 June 1978), art and book collector and philanthropist, was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Julius Rosenwald, a businessman, and Augusta Nusbaum. In 1908 he went to Cornell University but left in 1911 to work as a shipping clerk for Sears, Roebuck, of which his father was president. In 1913 Rosenwald married Edith Goodkind; they had five children. He served as a seaman, second class, in the U.S. Navy during World War I; after the war he returned to Sears, Roebuck. In 1920 his father sent him to Philadelphia to start that city’s first Sears store....
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Sackler, Arthur Mitchell (1913-1987), research psychiatrist, art collector, and philanthropist
Christine Keiner
Sackler, Arthur Mitchell (22 August 1913–26 May 1987), research psychiatrist, art collector, and philanthropist, was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Isaac Sackler and Sophie (maiden name unknown). In the 1930s Sackler simultaneously studied medicine at New York University (NYU) and art history at NYU and the Cooper Union Art Institute. To fund his medical studies, he joined the William Douglas MacAdams medical advertising agency. Sackler earned his B.S. from NYU in 1933 and his M.D. from NYU in 1937. In 1935 he married Else Jorgensen; they had two children....
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Shouse, Catherine Filene (09 June 1896–14 December 1994)
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Shouse, Catherine Filene (09 June 1896–14 December 1994)
Ann W. Caldwell
Shouse, Catherine Filene (09 June 1896–14 December 1994), philanthropist, patron of the arts, and advocate for careers for women, was born Catherine Filene in Boston, Massachusetts, the eldest daughter of A. Lincoln Filene and Thérèse Weil. As a child, she was known as Catherine; as an adult, she was always Kay. She grew up in a wealthy, progressive home where politicians, businessmen, musicians, and social reformers were frequent visitors. Her father, who never finished high school, engaged in civic, educational, and labor reforms while president of William Filene and Sons, the Boston retail store founded by her grandfather. Her mother, a talented amateur musician, supported the Boston Symphony Orchestra and founded a music settlement house....
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Stanford, Jane Eliza (1825-1905), philanthropist and collector
Claire Strom
Stanford, Jane Eliza (25 August 1825–28 February 1905), philanthropist and collector, was born in Albany, New York, the daughter of Dyer Lathrop, a storekeeper and founder of the Albany Orphan Asylum, and Jane Anne Shields. Jane had some elementary schooling, followed by a year at the Albany Female Academy (established in 1814) when she was fifteen. In 1850 Jane married ...
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Stokes, Isaac Newton Phelps (1867-1944), architect and historian
F. J. Sypher
Stokes, Isaac Newton Phelps (11 April 1867–18 December 1944), architect and historian, was born in New York City, the son of Anson Phelps Stokes, a banker, and Helen Louisa Phelps. His education was interrupted by episodes of ill health, but he entered Harvard University in 1887 and graduated in 1891. Stokes worked briefly in banking before he began to study at the School of Architecture of Columbia University from 1893 to 1894. He left without taking a degree and went to Paris to study housing design at the École des Beaux Arts. Improved tenement housing was to be a lifelong interest of his. In 1895 he married Edith Minturn. They had an adopted daughter....
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Wallace, Lila Bell Acheson (25 December 1889–08 May 1984), cofounder and co-owner of the Reader's Digest and philanthropist
Carol Reuss
Wallace, Lila Bell Acheson (25 December 1889–08 May 1984), cofounder and co-owner of the Reader's Digest and philanthropist, cofounder and co-owner of the Reader’s Digest and philanthropist, was born in Virden, Manitoba, Canada, the daughter of T. Davis Acheson and Mary E. Huston. After Lila’s father completed his theological studies and became a Presbyterian minister, the family moved to the United States and became U.S. citizens. They lived in various small towns in the Midwest and West....
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Warburg, Edward (05 June 1908–21 September 1992), philanthropist and art collector
N. Elizabeth Schlatter
Warburg, Edward (05 June 1908–21 September 1992), philanthropist and art collector, was born Edward Mortimer Morris Warburg in White Plains, New York, the son of Felix Warburg, a banker and philanthropist, and Frieda Schiff. Warburg's family connections and long-standing philanthropic activities, combined with his education in art history at Harvard University, contributed significantly to his success as a patron of culture and humanitarian causes throughout his life....
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Warburg, Edward (05 June 1908–21 September 1992)
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Wolfe, Catharine Lorillard (1828-1887), philanthropist and art collector
Saul E. Zalesch
Wolfe, Catharine Lorillard (08 March 1828–04 April 1887), philanthropist and art collector, was born in New York City, the daughter of John David Wolfe, a merchant and real-estate developer, and Dorothea Ann Lorillard. Wolfe experienced the stereotypical childhood of the very rich, including private tutors, fashionable parties, and family tours in Europe. Her interests appear to have included art, social life, fashion, foreign travel, and daily horseback riding in Central Park or near “Vinland,” her Newport estate. At the death of her mother in 1866 she inherited part of the Lorillard tobacco fortune and began to collaborate with her father in his philanthropic endeavors. She may also have begun speculating in real estate. After her father died in 1872 Wolfe possessed a fortune estimated at $12 million. It is difficult to determine how she invested or managed her money; as a refined woman, she shunned publicity, and contemporary observers only recorded her activities that were deemed appropriate for women. As seen by contemporaries, her main interests were the Episcopal church, social life, travel, philanthropy, and art collecting. One obituary declared, “Miss Wolfe was a most quiet and unassuming person and had no eccentricities of habit or character” ( ...
