Famous Givers and Their Gifts

The Spelman ancestors are English. Sir Henry Spelman, knighted by King James I., died in 1641, and lies buried in Westminster Abbey. Henry S., the third son of Sir Henry, and first of the name in America, came to Jamestown, Va., in 1609, and was killed by the Indians. Richard Spelman, born in Danbury, England, in 1665, came to Middletown, Conn., in 1700, and died in 1750. Laura's grandfather, Samuel, was the fourth in line from Richard. He was one of the pioneers in Ohio, moving thither from Granville, Mass. Her father, Harvey B. Spelman, was born in a log cabin in Rootstown, Ohio. Her mother's family came also from Massachusetts, from the town of Blanford; and her father and mother met and were married in Ohio.

Laura Spelman was a member of the first graduating class of the Cleveland High School, and has always retained the deepest interest in her classmates. After graduating, and spending some time in a boarding-school at the East, she taught very successfully for five years in the Cleveland public schools, being assistant in one of the large grammar schools.

At the age of twenty-five Mr. Rockefeller married Miss Spelman, Sept. 8, 1864. Disliking display or extravagance, fond of books, a wise adviser in her home, a leader for many years of the infant department in the Sunday-school, like her father a worker for temperance and in all philanthropic movements, Mrs. Rockefeller has been an example to the rich, and a friend and helper to the poor. Comparatively few men and women can be intrusted with millions, and make the best use of the money. With Mr. Rockefeller's married life thus happily and wisely begun, business activities went on as before, perchance with less wear of body and mind. It was, of course, impossible to organize and carry forward a great business without anxiety and care.

In Cleave's "Biographical Cyclopædia of Cuyahoga County," it is stated that, in 1872, two years after the organization of the Standard Oil Company, "nearly the entire refining interest of Cleveland, and other interests in New York and the oil-regions, were combined in this company [the Standard Oil], the capital stock of which was raised to two and a half millions, and its business reached in one year over twenty-five million dollars, – the largest company of the kind in the world. The New York establishment was enlarged in its refining departments; large tracts of land were purchased, and fine warehouses erected for the storage of petroleum; a considerable number of iron cars were procured, and the business of transporting oil entered upon; interests were purchased in oil-pipes in the producing regions.

"Works were erected for the manufacture of barrels, paints, and glue, and everything used in the manufacture or shipment of oil. The works had a capacity of distilling twenty-nine thousand barrels of crude oil per day, and from thirty-five hundred to four thousand men were employed in the various departments. The cooperage factory, the largest in the world, turned out nine thousand barrels a day, which consumed over two hundred thousand staves and headings, the product of from fifteen to twenty acres of selected oak."

Ten years after this time, in 1882, the Standard Oil Trust was formed, with a capital of $70,000,000, afterwards increased to $95,000,000, which in a few years became possessed of large oil-producing interests, and of the stock of the companies controlling the greater part of the refining of petroleum in this country.

Ten years later, in 1892, the Supreme Court of Ohio having declared the Trust to be illegal, it was dissolved, and the business is now conducted by separate companies. In each of these Mr. Rockefeller is a shareholder.

Mr. Rockefeller has proved himself a remarkable organizer. His associates have been able men; and his vast business has been so systematized, and the leaders of departments held responsible, that it is managed with comparative ease.

The Standard Oil Companies own hundreds of thousands of acres of oil-lands, and wells, refineries, and many thousand miles of pipe-lines throughout the United States. They have business houses in the principal cities of the Old World as well as the New, and carry their oil in their own great oil-steamships abroad as easily as in their pipe-lines to the American seaboard. They control the greater part of the petroleum business of this country, and export much of the oil used abroad. They employ from forty to fifty thousand men in this great industry, many of whom have remained with the companies for twenty or thirty years. It is said that strikes are unknown among them.

When it is stated, as in the last United States Census reports, that the production of crude petroleum in this country is about thirty-five million barrels a year, the capital invested in the production $114,000,000, and the value of the exports of petroleum in various forms amounts to nearly $50,000,000 a year, the vastness of the business is apparent.

With such power in their hands, instead of selling their product at high rates, they have kept oil at such low prices that the poorest all over the world have been enabled to buy and use it.

Mr. Rockefeller has not confined his business interests to the Standard Oil Company. He owns iron-mines and land in various States; he owns a dozen or more immense vessels on the lakes, besides being largely interested in other steamship lines on both the ocean and the great lakes; he has investments in several railroads, and is connected with many other industrial enterprises.

With all these different lines of business, and being necessarily a very busy man, he never seems hurried or worried. His manner is always kindly and considerate. He is a good talker, an equally good listener, and gathers knowledge from every source. Meeting the best educators of the country, coming in contact with leading business and professional men as well, and having travelled abroad and in his own country, Mr. Rockefeller has become a man of wide and varied intelligence. In physique he is of medium height, light hair turning gray, blue eyes, and pleasant face.

He is a lover of trees, never allowing one to be cut down on his grounds unless necessity demands it, fond of flowers, knows the birds by their song or plumage, and never tires of the beauties of nature.

He is as courteous to a servant as to a millionnaire, is social and genial, and enjoys the pleasantry of bright conversation. He has great power of concentration, is very systematic in business and also in his every-day life, allotting certain hours to work, and other hours to exercise, the bicycle being one of his chief out-door pleasures. He is fond of animals, and owns several valuable horses. A great Saint Bernard dog, white and yellow, called "Laddie," was for years the pet of the household and the admiration of friends. When recently killed accidentally by an electric wire, the dog was carefully buried, and the grave covered with myrtle. A pretty stone, a foot and a half high, cut in imitation of the trunk of an oak-tree, at whose base fern-leaves cluster, marks the spot, with the words "Our dog Laddie; died, 1895," carved upon a tiny slab.

It may be comparatively easy to do great deeds, but the little deeds of thoughtfulness and love for the dumb creatures who have loved us show the real beauty and refinement of character.

Mr. Rockefeller belongs to few social organizations, his church work and his home-life sufficing. He is a member of the New England Society, the Union League Club of New York, and of the Empire State Sons of the Revolution, as his ancestors, both on his father's and mother's side, were in the Revolutionary War.

His home is a very happy one. Into it have been born five children, – Bessie, Alice, who died early, Alta, Edith, and John D. Rockefeller, Jr.

Bessie is married to Charles A. Strong, Associate Professor of Psychology in Chicago University, a graduate of both the University of Rochester and Harvard, and has been a student at the Universities of Berlin and Paris. He is a son of the Rev. Dr. Augustus H. Strong, President of Rochester Theological Seminary.

Edith is married to Harold F. McCormick of Chicago, a graduate of Princeton, and son of the late Cyrus H. McCormick, whose invention of the reaper has been a great blessing to the world. Mr. McCormick gave generously of his millions after he had acquired wealth.

John D. Rockefeller, Jr., is at Brown University, and will probably be associated with his father in business, for which he has shown much aptitude.

The children have all been reared with the good sense and Christian teaching that are the foundations of the best homes. They have dressed simply, lived without display, been active in hospital, Sunday-school, and other good works, and found their pleasures in music, in which all the family are especially skilled, and in reading. They enjoy out-door life, skating in winter, and rowing, walking, and riding in the summer; but there is no lavish use of money for their pleasures.

The daughters know how to sew, and have made many garments for poor children. They have been taught the useful things of home-life, and often cook delicacies for the sick. They have found out in their youth that the highest living is not for self. A recent gift from Miss Alta Rockefeller is $1,200 annually to sustain an Italian day-nursery in the eastern part of Cleveland. This summer, 1896, about fifty little people, two years old and upwards, enjoyed a picnic in the grounds of their benefactor. Mrs. Rockefeller's mother and sister, Miss Lucy M. Spelman, a cultivated and philanthropic woman, are the other members of the Rockefeller family.

Besides Mr. Rockefeller's summer home in Cleveland, he has another with about one thousand acres of land at Pocantico Hills, near Tarrytown on the Hudson. The place is picturesque and historic, made doubly interesting through the legends of Washington Irving. From the summit of Kaakoote Mountain the views are of rare beauty. Sleepy Hollow and the grave of Irving are not far distant. The winter home in New York City is a large brick house, with brown-stone front, near Fifth Avenue, furnished richly but not showily, containing some choice paintings and a fine library.

Mr. Rockefeller will be long remembered as a remarkable financier and the founder of a great organization, but he will be remembered longest and honored most as a remarkable giver. We have many rich men in America, but not all are great givers; not all have learned that it is really more blessed to give than to receive; not all remember that we go through life but once, with its opportunities to brighten the lives about us, and to help to bear the burdens of others.

Mr. Rockefeller began to give very early in life, and for the last forty years has steadily increased his giving as his wealth has increased. Always reticent about his gifts, it is impossible to learn how much he has given or for what purposes. Of necessity some gifts become public, such as his latest to Vassar College of $100,000, a like amount to Rochester University and Theological Seminary, and the same, it is believed, to Spelman Seminary, at Atlanta, Ga., named as a memorial to his father-in-law.

This is a school for colored women and girls, with preparatory, normal, musical, and industrial departments. The institute opened with eleven pupils in 1881, and now has 744, with nine buildings on fourteen acres of land. Dr. J. L. M. Curry said in his report for 1893, "In process of erection is the finest school building for normal purposes in the South, planned and constructed expressly with reference to the work of training teachers, which will cost over $50,000." In the industrial department, dress-cutting, sewing, cooking, and laundry work are taught. There is also a training-school for nurses.

In a list of gifts for 1892, in the New York Tribune, Mr. Rockefeller's name appears in connection with Des Moines College, Ia., $25,000; Bucknell College, $10,000; Shurtleff College $10,000; the Memorial Baptist Church in New York, erected through the efforts of Dr. Edward Judson in memory of his father, Dr. Adoniram Judson, $40,000; besides large amounts to Chicago University. It is probable that, aside from Chicago University, these were only a small proportion of his gifts during that year.

An article in the press states that the recent anonymous gift of $25,000 to help purchase the land for the site of Barnard College of Columbia University was from Mr. Rockefeller. He has also pledged $100,000 towards a million dollars, which are to be used for the construction of model tenement houses for the poor in New York City.

He has given largely to the Cleveland Young Men's Christian Association, and to Young Men's and Women's Christian Associations both in this country and abroad. He has built churches, given yearly large sums to foreign and home missions, charity organization societies, Indian associations, hospital work, fresh-air funds, libraries, kindergartens, Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, for the education of the colored people at the South, and to the Woman's Christian Temperance Unions and to the National Temperance Society. He is a total abstainer, and no wine is ever upon his table. He does not use tobacco in any form.

Mr. Rockefeller's private charities have been almost numberless. He has aided young men and women through college, sometimes by gift and sometimes by loan. He has provided the means for persons who were ill to go abroad or elsewhere for rest. He does not forget, when his apples are gathered at Pocantico Hills, to send hundreds of barrels to the various charitable institutions in and near New York, or, when one of his workingmen dies, to continue the support to his family while it is needed. Some of us become too busy to think of the little ways of doing good. It is said by those who know him best, that he gives more time to his benevolences and to their consideration than to his business affairs. He employs secretaries, whose time is given to the investigation of requests for aid, and attending to such cases as are favorably decided upon.

Mr. Rockefeller's usual plan of giving is to pledge a certain sum on condition that others give, thus making them share in the blessings of benevolence. At one time he gave conditionally about $300,000, and it resulted in $1,700,000 being secured for some twenty or thirty institutions of learning in all parts of the country. It is said by a friend, that on his pledge-book are hundreds of charities to which he gives regularly many thousand dollars each month.

His greatest gift has been that of $7,425,000 to the University of Chicago. The first University of Chicago existed from 1858 to 1886, a period of twenty-eight years, and was discontinued from lack of funds. When the American Baptist Education Society, formed at Washington, D.C., in May, 1888, held its first anniversary in Tremont Temple, Boston, it was resolved "to take immediate steps toward the founding of a well-equipped college in the city of Chicago." Mr. Rockefeller had already become interested in founding such an institution, and made a subscription of $600,000 toward an endowment fund, conditioned on the pledging by others of $400,000 before June 1, 1890. The Rev. T. W. Goodspeed, and the Rev. E. T. Gates, Secretary of the Education Society, succeeded in raising this amount, and in addition a block and a half of ground as a site for the institution, valued at $125,000, given by Mr. Marshall Field of Chicago. Two and a half blocks were purchased for $282,500, making in all twenty-four acres, lying between the two great south parks of Chicago, Washington and Jackson, and fronting on the Midway Plaisance, a park connecting the other two. These parks contain a thousand acres.

The university was incorporated in 1890, and Professor William Rainey Harper of Yale University was elected President. The choice was an eminently wise one, a man of progressive ideas being needed for the great university. He had graduated at Muskingum College in 1870, taken his degree of Ph.D. at Yale in 1875, been Professor of Hebrew and the cognate languages at the Baptist Union Theological Seminary for seven years, Professor of the Semitic Languages at Yale for five years, and Woolsey Professor of Biblical Literature at Yale for two years, besides filling other positions of influence.

In September, 1890, Mr. Rockefeller made a second subscription of $1,000,000; and, in accordance with the terms of this gift, the Theological Seminary was removed from Morgan Park to the University site, as the Divinity School of the University, and dormitories erected, and an academy of the University established at Morgan Park.

The University began the erection of its first buildings Nov. 26, 1891. Mr. Henry Ives Cobb was chosen as the architect, and the English Gothic style is to be maintained throughout. The buildings are of blue Bedford stone, with red tiled roofs. The recitation buildings, laboratories, chapel, museum, gymnasium, and library are the central features; while the dormitories are arranged in quadrangles on the four corners.

Mr. Rockefeller's third gift was made in February, 1892, "one thousand five per cent bonds of the par value of one million dollars," for the further endowment of instruction. In December of the same year he gave an equal amount for endowment, "one thousand thousand-dollar five per cent bonds." In June, 1893 he gave $150,000; the next year, December, 1894, in cash, $675,000. On Jan. 1, 1896, another million, promising two millions more on condition that the University should also raise two millions. Half of this sum was obtained at once through the gift of Miss Helen Culver. In her letter to the trustees of the University, she says, "The whole gift shall be devoted to the increase and spread of knowledge within the field of biological science… Among the motives prompting this gift is the desire to carry out the ideas, and to honor the memory, of Mr. Charles J. Hull, who was for a considerable time a member of the Board of Trustees of the old University of Chicago."

Miss Culver is a cousin of the late Mr. Hull, who left her his millions for philanthropic purposes. Their home for many years was the mansion since known as Hull House.

The University of Chicago has been fortunate in other gifts. Mr. S. A. Kent of Chicago gave the Kent Chemical Laboratory, costing $235,000, opened Jan. 1, 1894. The Ryerson Physical Laboratory, costing $225,000, opened July 2, 1894, was the gift of Mr. Martin A. Ryerson, as a memorial to his father. Mrs. Caroline Haskell gave $100,000 for the Haskell Oriental Museum, as a memorial of her husband, Mr. Frederick Haskell. There will be rooms for Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek, Hebrew, and other collections. Mr. George C. Walker, $130,000 for the Walker Museum for geological and anthropological specimens; Mr. Charles T. Yerkes, nearly a half million for the Yerkes Observatory and forty-inch telescope; Mrs. N. S. Foster, Mrs. Henrietta Snell, Mrs. Mary Beecher, and Mrs. Elizabeth G. Kelley have each given $50,000, or more, for dormitories. It is expected that half a million will be realized from the estate of William B. Ogden for "The Ogden (graduate) School of Science." The first payment has amounted to half that sum. Considerably over $10,000,000 have been given to the University. The total endowment is over $6,000,000.

The University opened its doors to students on Oct. 1, 1892, in Cobb Lecture Hall, given by Mr. Silas B. Cobb of Chicago, and costing $150,000. The number of students during the first year exceeded nine hundred. The professors have been chosen with great care, and number among them some very distinguished men, from both the Old World and the New. The University of Chicago is co-educational, which is matter for congratulation. Its courses are open on equal terms to men and women, with the same teachers, the same studies, and the same diplomas. "Three of the deans are women," says Grace Gilruth Rigby in Peterson's Magazine for February, 1896, "and half a dozen women are members of its faculty. They instruct men as well as women, and in this particular it differs from most co-educational schools."

The University has some unique features. Instead of the usual college year beginning in September, the year is divided into four quarters, beginning respectively on the first day of July, October, January, and April, and continuing twelve weeks each, with a recess of one week between the close of each quarter and the beginning of the next. Degrees are conferred the last week of every quarter. The summer quarter, which was at first an experiment, has proved so successful that it is now an established feature.

The instructor takes his vacation in any quarter, or may take two vacations of six weeks each. The student may absent himself for a term or more, and take up the work where he left off, or he may attend all the quarters, and thus shorten his college course. Much attention is given to University Extension work, and proper preparatory work is obtained through the affiliation of academies with the University. Instruction is also given by the University through correspondence with those who wish to pursue preparatory or college studies.

"Chicago is, as far as I am aware," writes the late Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen in the Cosmopolitan for April, 1893, "the first institution which, by the appointment of a permanent salaried university extension faculty, has formally charged itself with a responsibility for the outside public. This is a great step, and one of tremendous consequence."

A non-resident student is expected to matriculate at the University, and usually spends the first year in residence. Non-resident work is accepted for only one-third of the work required for a degree.

The University has eighty regular fellowships and scholarships, besides several special fellowships.

The institution, according to Robert Herrick, in Scribner's Magazine for October, 1895, seems to have the spirit of its founder. "Two college settlements in the hard districts of Chicago," he writes, "are supported and manned by the students… The classes and clubs of the settlements show that the college students feel the impossibility of an academic life that lives solely to itself. On the philanthropic committee, and as teachers in the settlement classes, men and women, instructors and students, work side by side. The interest in sociological studies, which is commoner at Chicago than elsewhere, stimulates this modern activity in college life."

The University of Chicago has been successful from the first. In 1895 it numbered 1,265 students, of whom 493 were in the graduate schools, most of them having already received their bachelor's degree at other colleges. In 1896 there are over 1,900 students. The possibilities of the university are almost unlimited.

Dr. Albert Shaw writes in the Review of Reviews for February, 1893, "No rich man's recognition of his opportunity to serve society in his own lifetime has ever produced results so mature and so extensive in so very short a time as Mr. John D. Rockefeller's recent gifts to the Chicago University."

The New York Sun for July 4, 1896, gives Mr. Rockefeller the following well-deserved praise: "Mr. John D. Rockefeller has paid his first visit to the University of Chicago, which was built up and endowed by his magnificent gifts. The millions he has bestowed on that institution make him one of the very greatest of private contributors to the foundation of a school of learning in the whole history of the world. He has given the money, moreover, in his lifetime, and thus differs from nearly all others of the most notable founders and endowers of colleges.

"By so giving, too, he has distinguished himself from the great mass of all those who have made large benefactions for public uses. He has taken the millions from his rapidly accumulating fortune; and he has made the gifts quietly, modestly, and without the least seeking for popular applause, or to win the conspicuous manifestations of honor their munificence could easily have obtained for him. The reason for this remarkable peculiarity of Mr. Rockefeller as a public benefactor is that, being a deeply religious man, he has made his gifts as an obligation of religious duty, as it seems to him."