Women Philanthropists
Born in the 1870’s
Winifred Holt (1870-1945) began her
work with the blind by setting up a Ticket Bureau for the blind in New York
City in 1903. In 1905 the New York
Association for the Blind was founded to educate the public to the possibility
of making blindness no impediment to self-support and to work for the prevention
of blindness. Holt was secretary and a
leading fundraiser for 9 years. She
helped set up a workroom for broom making which grew into the first “Light
House” in 1913. Lighthouses were set up
internationally, including Italy,
Poland, India and China. She began a braille magazine for
children. When she married in 1922, the
request for donations as gifts raised $500,000.
She was named a chevalier in the French Legion of Honor and received
medals from Belgian, French and Italian governments for her life work.
Helena Rubinstein (1870-1965)
created a multimillion cosmetic industry.
Born in Poland, she
emigrated to Australia in
1902 and went to London
in 1908 where she opened her salon with $100,000, using her knowledge of
dermatology. She moved to Paris and fled to America in 1915. She gave generously to Israel and founded the Helena
Rubinstein Pavilion of Contemporary Art in Tel Aviv. In 1953 she set up the Helena Rubinstein
Foundation which supported health, medical research and rehabilitation, and the
America-Israel Cultural Foundation and provided scholarships for Israelis.
Edith Rockefeller McCormick (1872-1932) was a Chicago society leader
and supporter of opera. She and her
husband were prime movers in founding the Chicago Opera Company in 1910. Over 30 years, their fortunes provided
commissioned translations of 22 operas into English. They also attempted to achieve “reasonable”
ticket prices. In 1913 McCormick
studied with Jung in Zurich
and contributed to his research. She
endowed the Psychological Club. She
supported James Joyce with a thousand francs for months as he wrote Ulysses. In 1923 she founded the Chicago Zoological
Gardens to support the study of experimental psychology.
Anne Morgan (1873-1952) supported
women shirtwaist strikers in 1909 and in 1910 she helped found the Working
Girls’ Vacation Association. In 1913 she
inherited $3,000,000 from John Pierpont Morgan. In 1914 she offered the use of her mansion
near Versailles
to the French government. She founded
the American Fund for French wounded soldiers and established health centers,
libraries and camps. She also provided
medical supplies and food. In 1932 she
was the first American woman awarded Commander of the Legion of Honor by the
French. In 1924 she raised funds for the
American Woman’s Association to provide home and recreational facilities for
1,200 professional women of moderate means.
In 1928 a 27- story clubhouse opened.
Morgan was president from 1928 to 1943.
During WW II she set up relief centers in France. In 1927 she envisaged a time when women “will
take their places beside men as partners, unafraid, useful, successful and
free.” She disclaimed being a feminist!
Abby Aldrich Rockefeller
(1874-1948) was a co-founder of the Museum
of Modern Art in New York City. She served on its board as treasurer and
later vice-chairman. She donated about
200 paintings and more than 1600 prints to the museum. During the depression she commissioned
paintings, many of which she distributed to colleges throughout the East. Her interest in American folk art resulted in
the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Collection of paintings, carved animals and dolls
in Williamsburg, Virginia.
She was a sister-in-law of Edith McCormick.
Katharine Dexter McCormick
(1875-1967) spoke for woman suffrage at the first open-air demonstration in Massachusetts in
1909. She paid the $6,000 debt of the Woman’s Journal, the suffrage
publication in 1912. In the 1920s she established the Neuroendocrine Research
Foundation at Harvard
Medical School
and subsidized endocrine research and the journal Endocrinology. She supported
the work of Margaret Sanger and the research of Gregory Pincus to develop an
oral contraceptive pill with a $5,000,000 endowment. She donated money for an art museum in Santa Barbara. She provided funds to build first-class
dormitories for 342 women at MIT, the Stanley McCormick Hall West in 1962 and
East in 1968, removing the excuse that women could not be enrolled because of
lack of housing.
Mary Curtis Bok Zimbalist (1876-1970)
used her inheritance from her mother to build the Settlement
Music School
in Philadelphia
to bring music to disadvantaged children.
She provided $500,000 to found the Curtis Institute of Music in 1924 to
honor her father, Cyrus Curtis. When the
total endowment reached $12,500,000 the school abolished tuition. Over the
years Leopold Stokowski led the student orchestra; students included Barber,
Menotti and Bernstein. She also assisted
the futurist composer George Antheil in 1921. She often provided living
expenses and pianos to needy students.
She opened the Rockport summer music colony in Maine.
In her father’s memory she gave the world’s largest movable pipe organ
to the Academy of Music in Philadelphia. She donated the Annie Russell Theater to
Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida.
References used include
Notable American
Women, 1609-1950
Notable American
Women, The Modern Period
Notable American
Women, Completing the Twentieth Century
History of Woman Suffrage, Volumes 1 to 6
Slack, Charles, Hetty Green, America’s First Female Tycoon. 2004
