Philanthropists

A list of patrons and members of the Public Schools Athletic League.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-08

President Roosevelt is pleased by what Andrew Carnegie is going to do for the Bureau of American Republics, and believes he has done something similar for the Hague Peace Conference. His gifts significantly aid the cause of peace for both hemispheres.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-01-02

President Roosevelt’s former classmate, James Ford Rhodes, reflects on Roosevelt’s administration and how it will be viewed by history. He believes three points will endure: the man whose critics called him a champion of war has become a peace keeper; Roosevelt has set a high standard of honesty in public service, and has inspired good young men to enter into politics; and his presidency has favored neither the rich nor the poor, but administered justice to both. Rhodes also reflects on the lives of the rich, comparing America’s wealthy with others in history, particularly those of the Roman Republic and Empire. He believes the Americans are better because of the use they make of their wealth. While the ancient Romans dedicated themselves to lives of sensual pleasure, the modern Americans live simply and give to educational and charitable causes.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-03-16

Puck tugs at the coat-tails of Andrew Carnegie, as he and John D. Rockefeller, Junior, pile money bags around the base of a statue labeled “Fame,” which they seek by endowing libraries and universities. Puck is suggesting that they could do more good for society by endowing places like a “Home for Consumptives.” Caption: Puck — You have qualified thoroughly as modern philanthropists, now why not do some good?

comments and context

Comments and Context

When Puck Magazine had opinions, they usually were expressed in written editorials or, in cartoons, through the character of its mascot-figure Puck. Here he suggests to the nation’s two greatest benefactors of the day, that their largesse might better be directed to the sick and poor than to libraries and universities.

Puck stands next to a statue of Peter Cooper in front of the Cooper Union building, holding a paper that states “Puck suggests a few outlets for overflowing incomes.” Crowds of working class men and women and disadvantaged youths in need of proper education fill the sides, while in the center throngs of people stream toward the entrances to the Cooper Union building.

comments and context

Comments and Context

Inventor and philanthropist Peter Cooper established Cooper Union in 1859 as a school, totally or substantially tuition-free, primarily to teach trades and industrial arts. In an impressive building on New York City’s Astor Place, in its first year it hosted the most important speech of Abraham Lincoln’s pre-presidential canvass; and can boast of many prominent graduates through the years. As it expanded, a daytime engineering college and a four-year undergraduate program both were established in 1902, the date of Ehrhart’s cartoon. He implicitly criticizes Andrew Carnegie, whose eponymous libraries, in the cartoon’s view, did not serve common workers. However, Carnegie himself contributed greatly to Cooper Union during 1902. Generally, Puck was celebrating a New York institution on the occasion of its general reputation and its contemporary expansion. Cooper Union, by the way, is less than five minute’s walk from the Puck Building, which still sits on the corner of Houston and Mulberry Streets in Manhattan.

Charles M. Schwab, holding a moneybag labeled “Schwab,” stands next to Andrew Carnegie who is sitting on the ground, holding a moneybag labeled “Carnegie” and with a basket labeled “$10,000,000 for Scotch Universities” overflowing with money next to him. Schwab gestures toward factories on the left as he addresses Carnegie. In the background, on the right, is a line of old men wearing caps and gowns and carrying “Diplomas” under their arms, emerging from a building labeled “University.” Caption: Schwab (to Carnegie). — This is the school most people must go to, and the one that has always turned out the biggest men. That other school is for the few and is already turning out too many doctors, ministers, lawyers and clerks. Don’t you think we ought to improve conditions in our school rather than in that other one?

comments and context

Comments and Context

Of interest in this Puck cartoon is the manner of Pughe’s caricatures of the titans of finance. At one time, Puck and other reform periodicals cast critical eyes on men of extreme wealth, the implication being that their fortunes were gained as the result of market manipulation or crushing of competitors. When the wealthy became philanthropists, in effect recycling their gains, they were portrayed more kindly, as in this cartoon. 

Puck stands on a stage speaking to wealthy philanthropists. From left: an empty seat “reserved for Russell Sage,” Mrs. Leland Stanford, Miss [Helen Miller?] Gould, John D Rockefeller Jr., Andrew Carnegie, Vanderbilt [William K., by resemblance], [and] J. P. Morgan.” Puck is displaying a “Plan for model tenement” and pointing to a view of current tenement housing conditions projected on a magic-lantern screen on the stage. In the “Christmas sermon,” Puck is entreating that when these generous millionaires are performing their philanthropy, they not only endow schools and libraries, which benefit “those that already have much,” but also “give something to those who have less than nothing.”

comments and context

Comments and Context

Around the time of this cartoon, Puck, always a magazine of reform through its cartoons and editorials, joined the ranks of periodicals urging social justice activism and attention to urban ills in the movement called Naturalism. Having rejected the prescriptions of Bryanism, it welcomed and paralleled the reform agenda of Theodore Roosevelt. By 1910 its stances were vaguely Socialist.

President Roosevelt received opera singer Marcella Sembrich’s message from his sister, Corinne Roosevelt Robinson. He assures Sembrich that the American people have greatly appreciated her singing, and thanks her for generously using her voice to help philanthropic endeavors.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1909-02-01

President Roosevelt joins with Henry B. F. Macfarland’s committee and all the citizens of Washington, D.C., to recognize the social service that Charles Frederick Weller and Eugenia Winston Weller have performed over the past seven years. Among many other initiatives, the couple worked on committees to prevent consumption, improve housing conditions, and establish playgrounds and summer outings. Their departure is widely regretted.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-11-18

President Roosevelt says that Guild A. Copeland’s feature reaffirms the position he has held all along regarding “the municipal ownership idea.” 

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-11-01

President Roosevelt writes to Ambassador Tower to introduce Arthur von Briesen, “one of our New Yorkers whom it is a pleasure to honor.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-06-07

President Roosevelt writes to Ambassador Storer to introduce Arthur von Briesen, “one of our New Yorkers whom it is a pleasure to honor.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-06-07

President Roosevelt will be unable to attend the installation of Josiah Strong as the first President of the American Institute of Social Service and is glad that the movement is in other countries.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1903-11-10

Andrew B. Hulit, on behalf of the National Association of State Immigration Officials, sends Theodore Roosevelt a copy of the report of their recent conference. Hulit also mentions that a commendatory letter from Roosevelt would be greatly appreciated.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-09-04

Anne Tracy Morgan would like to see Theodore Roosevelt to discuss Miss Berry’s School in Georgia.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-02-08

P. Polyglotte asks President Roosevelt to become a patron of a pharmaceutical charitable dispensary and the Indian International Polyglot Free Library. He has wanted to do something for the general public benefit.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-11-14

List of sponsor, co-sponsors, patrons, and supporters of the 84th annual dinner and meeting of the Theodore Roosevelt Association in October 2003. The sponsor, Roosevelt & Cross Incorporated, was founded by Archibald B. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt’s son, and one of the co-sponsors, The Roosevelt Investment Group, was founded by P. James Roosevelt.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

2004

P. James Roosevelt confers the Theodore Roosevelt Distinguished Service Medal on Harold Lyle Schafer and Sheila Schafer. Roosevelt quotes extensively from Theodore Roosevelt in his remarks in which he notes the philanthropic work done by the Schafers, the roots of their success in the Gold Seal Company, and their restoration of the town of Medora, North Dakota.

A photograph of the Schafers with Roosevelt and William Davison Johnston of the Theodore Roosevelt Association accompanies the citation. A text box with the “Vision Statement of the Theodore Roosevelt Association” supplements the speech. 

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

P. James Roosevelt confers the Theodore Roosevelt Distinguished Service Medal on Harold Lyle Schafer and Sheila Schafer. Roosevelt quotes extensively from Theodore Roosevelt in his remarks in which he notes the philanthropic work done by the Schafers, the roots of their success in the Gold Seal Company, and their restoration of the town of Medora, North Dakota.

A photograph of the Schafers with Roosevelt and William Davison Johnston of the Theodore Roosevelt Association accompanies the citation.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

This article provides a biography of each of the winners of the 1983 Theodore Roosevelt Distinguished Service Medal. Three paragraphs cover the four winners: Captain Edward L. Beach, Ambassador Philip C. Habib, Harold Lyle Schafer, and Sheila Schafer. The paragraphs provide highlights of the careers of each of the winners. Each of the paragraphs is accompanied by a photograph of the medal recipient(s).

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

1984