History Was Philanthropy Book’s Aim, Not Speculating About the Past

To the Editor:

In his review of my newly released book, Philanthropy in America: A History, Michael Edwards faults me for not writing his kind of history (“Is America Better Off Because of Its Reliance on Giving by the Wealthy?,” December 8.).

He states that “we look to historians not just for their analysis of patterns from the past but also for their guidance in helping us deal with similar issues in the present.”

I take a different view. As a historian, my charge in this book was to explain the distinctive form of American philanthropy. This was an ambitious undertaking, one that Mr. Edwards believes that I have done well. I trust that readers will find in the patterns described in Philanthropy in America the historical guidance they need for apprehending their present.

Mr. Edwards criticizes me especially for not shedding light on what he sees as “the biggest issue that faces philanthropy today: Is America better off as a result of its greater reliance on private solutions and noblesse oblige of the wealthy than societies that place more faith in government and civil societies financed heavily by donations from average citizens?”

In other words, Mr. Edwards would have liked me to engage in the counterfactual speculation of comparing the past to a hypothetical alternative.

Instead, in Philanthropy in America, I retrace as carefully as possible the effects of our philanthropic institutions on democracy and society. I focus on the long-term and creative union between the rich and many groups of reformers that has made it possible for philanthropy to achieve a large social agenda. I show how this union has worked despite abuses and reservations about the rise in inequality that springs periodically from the very economic concentration that bankrolls big-money philanthropy. The Rockefeller Foundation has not been a threat to democracy even though at the time of its creation, the attorney general denounced it as a “scheme for perpetuating vast wealth.” Nor has the Ford Foundation put the country in peril, although segregationist Southern Democrats in the 1960s thought it was doing just that.

Mr. Edwards’s charge is also flawed on a factual count. Average citizens have contributed heavily to American philanthropy.

But Mr. Edwards ignores my extensive discussion of mass philanthropy. Philanthropy in America does much more than trace the emergence of large foundations and endowments by wealthy donors.

A critical theme in the book is the genuine democratization of philanthropy throughout the last century. I show how the practice of philanthropic giving has become a part of mass culture, with a people’s philanthropy, based on large fund-raising campaigns.

I should add that my view of philanthropy is not uncritical. In Philanthropy in America, I expose interest groups who use the government regulation of philanthropy to promote their special programs whenever the evidence warrants it.

But the rich (often at odds with one another) are not the only ones! Veterans were largely responsible for the tax act of 1934 that attempted to build a firewall between philanthropy and politics. Segregationists in Congress in the aftermath of the civil- rights movement played a big role in the passage of the 1969 tax act. The list goes on.

Nonetheless, I adhere to my view that philanthropy has made essential contributions to our quality of life, that the generosity of the wealthy is not simply a means of capturing public policy or a form of self-aggrandizement, and that many different forms of philanthropy have genuinely enlarged our democracy. That is the position I stake out in Philanthropy in America after fairly reconstructing and analyzing the historical record.

Olivier Zunz
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Va.