Philanthropy, Patronage, and Civil Society

In "Philanthropy, Patronage, and Civil Society", Thomas Adam has assembled a comparative set of case studies that challenge long-held and little-studied assumptions about the modern development of philanthropy. Generally limited to a post-1930s American context, histories of philanthropy have often neglected European patterns of giving and the importance of financial patronage in the nineteenth century. It has long been assumed, for example, that Germany never developed civic traditions of philanthropy as in the United States, but German patronage and philanthropy in the nineteenth century reveal a once active culture of giving. Nineteenth-century German museums, art galleries, and social housing projects were not only privately founded and supported, they were also blueprints for the creation of similar public institutions in North America. The comparative method of the essays helps to reveal the important civic and cultural role played by philanthropy, demonstrating for example, the place of philanthropy in the development of middle-class Jewish culture and identity in Germany and North America. The essays show the extent to which civic institutions were dependent on private support, and, perhaps even more importantly, how the wealthy classes defined themselves through their philanthropic activities. By observing the giving activities of each other, newly rich Germans and North Americans developed a sense of class entitlement and identity that transcended national boundaries. Students and scholars of philanthropy, class and group identity, and transatlantic cultural relationships should welcome the new research presented in this volume.