‘Town & Country’: Rockefeller Philanthropy

The Rockefellers are America’s first family of philanthropy, declares the novelist Ben Cheever, in an article in Town & Country, which devotes its January issue to things it considers “best.”

Mr. Cheever says the family’s generosity has three “outstanding characteristics”:

• “They gave away more than they kept.” Mr. Cheever says that John D. Rockefeller Jr. gave $102-million to his heirs, while charities received $1-billlion.
• “The Rockefellers gave money even while being attacked.” For example, when in 1910 the Rockefellers began giving money to fight hookworm, “it was bruited about that the family had invested in the shoe business and spread the hookworm alarm in order to get Southerners to wear shoes,” writes Mr. Cheever. “Despite their misgivings, the Southerners took their medicine and the disease was virtually eradicated.”
• “The impulse to give lasted as long as the money.”