| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 105.5

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 105.5 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Judith Sealander. Private Wealth and Public Life: Foundation Philanthropy and the Reshaping of American Social Policy from the Progressive Era to the New Deal. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 1997. Pp. xii, 349. $39.95.

At the turn of the twentieth century, new technology and new business techniques led to the creation of wealth and power that challenged traditional assumptions not only about opportunity but also about the social responsibility of the wealthy. Historically, most rich people gave little to those not related to them; individuals who did engage in philanthropy personally distributed funds to causes they deemed worthy, such as schools, symphony orchestras, and museums. A few creators of vast new fortunes, however, began to rethink the institutional structure of charity. Rather than administering charitable giving themselves, they established philanthropic foundations based on a corporate model. A very small minority of these foundations began to reconsider the fundamental purpose of charity itself; instead of making grants to individuals or providing funds for emergency relief, they distributed money in a way calculated to influence public policy. Judith Sealander's book focuses its attention on that handful of foundations and on their efforts to shape policy from the Progressive era to the New Deal. 1

Sealander maintains that previous scholarship has exaggerated the power of foundations and overstated their impact, both for good and evil. According to Sealander, both critics and defenders of foundations have paid "too much attention to stated goals" and "too little to results" (p. 31). "Private wealth did create significant changes in public life," she maintains, "but public life . . . proved difficult to control" (p. 31). . . .

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