‘Nickel and Dime’ Giving Examined in New History

Tom Cogill

Historians have given scant attention to philanthropy. A new book by Olivier Zunz, Philanthropy in America: A History, offers a redress.

In his book, Mr. Zunz, a professor of American history at the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville, describes the growth of U.S. philanthropy from the 1870s to the present. He looks at not only the giving of the elites—Andrew Carnegie, Bill Gates—but also the “mass philanthropy” of ordinary Americans.

The Chronicle spoke with Mr. Zunz about the book.

Why haven’t more historians explored this topic?

It’s so big. Most of what’s been written has been written about “philanthropy and” —philanthropy and medicine, philanthropy and physics, philanthropy and the arts. There’s not a connection with the larger history of American politics and decision making and policy making, which I took on. I also thought it was important not to fall into another trap, which was to choose to write just about one sector, like foundations, which account only for about 12 percent of giving. I wanted to talk about the democratization of philanthropy. It’s not often in the life of a historian that you find such a big topic that’s looking for its history.

You argue that philanthropy has strengthened democracy. Why?

It’s the issue of participation. It involves people in decision making, it involves people in things that are larger than they could do on their own.

Why did you draw the study so broadly?

I could have titled this book “From Carnegie to Gates.” But I don’t think that’s the narrative that dominates the book. Their philanthropy was counterbalanced by mass philanthropy. It’s because of mass philanthropy, nickel-and-dime philanthropy, that philanthropy has acquired its influence.

What’s a little-understood example of how philanthropy has influenced social or political movements?

Civil rights. In histories of the civil-rights movement the lens is on the major actors and their political battles, with good reason. But I tried in the book to resurrect a few actors that were absolutely critical, like Stephen Currier. He founded the Taconic Foundation. It was one of the first funders of the voter-registration program. [The Kennedys] didn’t want to confront the Southern Democrats in Congress, and since [they weren’t] going to go to Congress to get the money for voter registration, [they] went to philanthropies.

How do early philanthropists like Andrew Carnegie compare with today’s megadonors, people like Bill Gates and George Soros?

There’s a direct line from Carnegie to Gates. The connection is the idea that Carnegie expressed quite well in his essay on wealth, that the money was not really totally his, that it belonged to the people who made it possible for him to earn this money.

But there are major, major differences. Carnegie was a pure, unaltered social Darwinist. I don’t think we have a trace of that in Bill Gates. Carnegie wanted to interfere in public affairs all the time and he did. Gates doesn’t have those political ambitions, even though the Gates foundation is sometimes acting like a separate state.