The Philanthropic Revolution

An Alternative History of American Charity

Jeremy Beer

• Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780812247930, 9780812247930
• eBook ISBN: 9780812292473
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Political Philosophy
• Index: Social Sciences

When we talk about voluntary giving today, we usually prefer the word philanthropy to charity. Why has this terminological shift taken place? What is its philosophical significance? How did philanthropy come to acquire so much prestige—and charity come to seem so old-fashioned? Was this change contested? Does it matter?In The Philanthropic Revolution, Jeremy Beer argues that the historical displacement of charity by philanthropy represents a radical transformation of voluntary giving into a practice primarily intended to bring about social change. The consequences of this shift have included secularization, centralization, the bureaucratization of personal relations, and the devaluing of locality and place.Beer shows how the rise of "scientific charity" and the "new philanthropy" was neither wholly unchallenged nor entirely positive. He exposes the way modern philanthropy's roots are entangled with fear and loathing of the poor, anti-Catholic prejudice, militarism, messianic dreams, and the ideology of progress. And he reveals how a rejection of traditional charity has sometimes led philanthropy's proponents to champion objectionable social experiments, from the involuntary separation of thousands of children from their parents to the forced sterilizations of the eugenics movement.Beer's alternative history discloses that charity is uniquely associated with personalist goods that philanthropy largely excludes. Insofar as we value those goods, he concludes, we must look to inject the logic of charity into voluntary giving through the practice of a modified form of giving he calls "philanthrolocalism."

Chapter 1

Unlocking the Universe’s Secret

The Theological Roots of American Charity

Not only were the ideal recipients of the Christian gift—the poor—different from the traditional recipients of urban benefactions—the citizens, many of whom were by no means poor—but the imagined effects of giving were also profoundly different. Behind the Christian notion of giving to the poor lay the novel idea that giving to the poor (and to other pious causes) involved a transfer of wealth from this world to the next, summed up in the notion of placing treasure in heaven.

—Peter Brown1

The story of charity in America is a fundamentally Jewish and Christian story. The way that Americans have thought about voluntary giving has been from the beginning decisively shaped by the biblical tradition that has played such a large role in forming American thinking, society, and culture. The practice of charity was, and is, central to that tradition. Thus to understand what was at stake in the critique of charity mounted by the partisans of philanthropy in the modern period, we must first examine what was at stake in the attack on pagan philanthropia by the partisans of Christian caritas in late antiquity. In other words, before there was a philanthropic revolution, there was a charitable one.

In the Greco-Roman world of late antiquity—let us say the 100–400 AD period—“most persons lived miserable lives, at a standard of living that never reached beyond that enjoyed by the populations of other pre-industrial empires,” in the words of Peter Brown. Yet persons in need could find assistance only through one of three primary sources: the family, patronage, and philanthropy. For many people—especially the truly poor, the sick, the widowed, and the orphaned—these sources of help were often inaccessible.

Roman patrons, for example, did not enter into patronage relationships with the truly needy. Their clients had to be socially respectable, for they had to be able to give something in return—“votes, money, or prestige”—for their patrons’ assistance. That assistance was by no means characterized by selflessness. As one scholar states, “The patronage system offered much more incentive for the exploitation of clients than for their care.”2

The practice of philanthropy (philanthropia) by the wealthy did redound to the benefit of the needy, and on occasion private citizens provided goods such as grain, oil, and money to the general public. But these benefits were neither regular nor reliable, and their intent was not to ease the suffering of the worst-off but to augment their donors’ reputation for piety. Philanthropia was therefore not surprisingly often practiced during religious festivals, and it was targeted toward the general citizenry—if the most needy received a share of this largesse, that was at best a happy accident.3 Philanthropia was intended to be conspicuous and, as with patronage, to increase the giver’s honor, prestige, or political capital.4

In the interest of political stability, the Roman empire’s governmental bodies sometimes gave food and other kinds of material aid to the poor, but “even this aid was only intended for the relatively poor, the penes, and not for the truly destitute, ptochos. Indeed, provision of any sort of aid to the truly destitute, beggars, was considered contemptible; it only encouraged them.”5 As a popular dictum of the dramatist Plautus (254–184 BC) went, “He does the beggar a bad service who gives him meat and drink, for what he gives is lost, and the life of the poor is prolonged to their own misery.” In the face of such views, reported St. John Chrysostom (347–407) in the fourth century AD, beggars sometimes tried to “earn” donations by entertaining prospective givers with “tricks” such as “eating the leather from worn out shoes,” “driving sharp nails into their heads,” and “plunging their naked bodies in water frozen by the cold.”6

The extended family was the most important and by far the most frequently called-upon source of aid in late antiquity. But family could not always be relied upon. Plague or illness might wipe out a good portion of one’s relatives—and hence one’s support system. Then, too, “it was by no means unheard of that the chronically ill might be shunned, having become too great an economic burden or too extreme a risk of contagion for a family teetering at the edge of mere survival,” writes Andrew Crislip. He suggests that this may have been what had happened to those lepers mentioned in Luke’s Gospel who, living on the edge of town, called out to Jesus for mercy.7

The elderly were sometimes abandoned, and the threat of eventual abandonment was a cause of much anxiety. Slaves had it worse. They were “commonly cast out when no longer profitable, left for dead in the agora or temple.” If they survived, they might have the misfortunate of outliving their own children and relatives and thus when old would again find no help available to them.8 No provision of shelter was made by Roman institutions at all for the poor, and health care was generally unavailable to them outside the family, except for the occasional charitable physician (although “the clever physician would refuse any patient unlikely to recover, thus enhancing his rate of success”).9 In sum, “whether in health care, shelter, food, or clothing, those with limited or no recourse to family were quickly reduced to a usually short life of itinerant beggary.”10

In directing their patronage toward clients who could help them; in ensuring that their philanthropy was visible and directed toward the public at large; and in making relatively little effort to succor the poor, sick, elderly, and enslaved, the ancient Greeks and Romans were not acting impiously. After all, no god of the Greco-Roman world demanded that one show charity toward the needy. Their suffering was of little if any interest to these deities, and therefore helping them was not a religious obligation. The theologian Gary Anderson emphasizes that when rich Romans did make donations to assist the less fortunate, such donations were not regarded as serving a religious function.11

We must be careful to add a number of qualifications to this story, for voluntary giving was far from unknown in the ancient Mediterranean world. The Roman lower classes, for example, often formed benefit societies that provided financial and material aid to their members, including food and burial funds.12 The institution of patronage, even if it was self-interested and exploitative, often helped get people through hard times or back on their feet. And the wealthy sincerely valued and honored the magnanimous giving away of wealth. Roman sarcophagi often featured the chriophoros, a symbol of philanthropy that consisted of a carved relief of a man carrying a sheep on his shoulder. The chriophoros was often paired with the orans, a hand uplifted in prayer. “The two figures represent the two chief characteristics of a virtuous man or woman, piety and respect toward the gods and philanthropy and justice toward one’s fellow human beings.”13

Furthermore, not unlike contemporary American elites, the Roman rich generously supported cultural institutions and the general welfare, and they liked to be recognized for that generosity. An extant inscription notes that Pliny the Younger (61–113 AD), a high-ranking government official, “left by will public baths . . . and an additional 300,000 sesterces for furnishing them, with interest on 200,000 for their upkeep . . . and also to his city capital of 1,866,666 2/3 sesterces to support a hundred of his freedman, and subsequently to provide an annual dinner for the people of the city. . . . Likewise in his lifetime he gave 500,000 sesterces for the maintenance of boys and girls of the city, and also 100,000 for the upkeep of the library.”14 There is no reason to think that Pliny’s generosity was unusual among his class. Philanthropy as an aspect of religious piety was so integral to the Roman way of life that the Christian apologist Tertullian emphasized it as a point of connection between paganism and Christianity.15

Yet it is nevertheless true that the sensibilities and practices associated with Roman philanthropia on the one hand and biblical caritas on the other were strikingly different. Unlike their Roman counterparts, Jews and Christians were so uniquely dedicated to serving the sick, impoverished, and unwanted that a number of new Latin and Greek words had to be invented to name the institutions they created for this purpose. Why this difference? A number of theories have been put forward, but the simplest is still the most persuasive: for Jews and Christians, charity was salvific. For them, to give generously from one’s wealth to the needy was not merely an act of civic piety; it was to “lay up treasure in heaven,” and thus it had the deepest and most lasting personal significance possible.

Charitable deeds were central to the theology of late-antique Judaism. For example, mitsva, the Hebrew word for commandment, has a secondary meaning of “charity.” As one rabbinic text explains, “Giving alms is equal to keeping all the commandments in the Torah.”16 Moses himself made clear the Jew’s obligation to those in need:

If there is among you anyone in need, a member of your community in any of your towns within the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy neighbor. You should rather open your hand, willingly lending enough to meet the need, whatever it may be. . . . Give liberally and be ungrudging when you do so, for on this account the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, “Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.” (Deut. 15:7–11)

For Jews and their early Christian counterparts alike, to give to the needy was truly to lay up treasure in heaven. Gary Anderson argues that three proverbs were central to the growth of a distinctive biblical theology of almsgiving that held that to give to the poor is to make deposits in a heavenly treasury. The first of these, Proverbs 10:2, reads, “The treasuries of wickedness provide no benefit, but almsgiving delivers from death.” The second, Proverbs 11:4, reads, “Riches provide no benefit on the day of wrath, but almsgiving delivers from death.” And the third, Proverbs 19:17, reads, “Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and will be repaid in full.”

Thus, for example, for the Jewish author of Sirach, Ben Sira, “the money expended as charity returns to the donor as a credit to a heavenly bank account.”17 Sirach shows that “having money is tantamount to a spiritual ordeal whose outcome is determined by whether one has the courage to give it away.”18 The Book of Tobit also reveals the influence of these key Proverbs. Tobit says to his son Tobias, “Do not turn your face away from anyone who is poor, and the face of God will not be turned away from you. If you have many possessions, make your gift from them in proportion; if few, do not be afraid to give according to the little you have. So you will be laying up a good treasure for yourself against the day of necessity. For almsgiving delivers from death and keeps you from going into the darkness.” Anderson notes that it is because of the pervasiveness of this view of almsgiving that Jewish beggars would say the phrase “zeki bi”—“acquire a merit through me”—when asking for money.19

Christ intensified the Jewish teaching concerning the poor. He references the special status of almsgiving in Mark 10:21, when he tells the rich young man who wishes to follow him to “go sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.” In Matthew 6, Jesus states that prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are together the means by which a person stores currency in the heavenly treasury. In Matthew 25, he develops this teaching further, instructing his disciples that he is himself present in the needy and that when one ministers to them, one therefore serves him as well: “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.” The church would eventually come to refer to these acts as the corporal works of mercy.

This high view of almsgiving is present in stories of the early apostles, as well. Tabitha, the woman St. Peter raises from the dead in Acts 9, is described as a woman “devoted to good works and acts of charity.” The story notes that the beneficiaries of her charity are there with her, mourning, when Peter arrives. Surely, Anderson argues, this detail is meant to signify the salvific consequences of her life of giving.

In short, charity is absolutely central to the biblical theology that informed the development of both the Jewish and Christian traditions in the ancient world. The early church provides further evidence. St. Basil of Caeserea (329–79), continuing to develop the orthodox teaching, argued that to help the poor is to make a gift as well as a loan. It is a loan in that God pays back the giver. And God does this because he is himself incarnate in the poor man.

The special and very real presence of God in the poor was widely emphasized by the church fathers. St. John Chrysostom (347–407) preached, “Whenever . . . you see a poor believer, imagine that you behold an altar. Whenever you meet a beggar, don’t insult him, but reverence him.” Pope Leo the Great (400–461) held that almsgiving is “so important that, though the other virtues exist without it, they can be of no avail. For although a person be full of faith, and chaste, and sober, and adorned with other still greater decorations, yet if he is not merciful, he cannot deserve mercy.”

Christian practice by and large matched the theory. The Roman emperor Julian the Apostate (330–63), who struggled to restore the old Roman cult after his uncle Constantine had made Christianity the official religion of the empire, grudgingly paid tribute to the central, and utterly unique, place of charity in Jewish and Christian practice. He believed that it was the new religion’s revolutionary practices of feeding the poor and ministering to the sick that was gaining it converts, so he ordered his priests to copy these acts in order that the traditional religion might better compete with its Christian rival. It was Christians’ “benevolence to strangers, their care for the graves of the dead and the pretended holiness of their lives” that had led to the growth of the church, wrote Julian to Arsacius, high priest of Galatia. He went on to lament that “the impious Galilaeans support not only their own poor but ours as well; all men see that our people lack aid from us.”20

The eminent historian of antiquity Peter Brown agrees that almsgiving was central not only to Christian theology but also to Christian practice during the late Roman period. “Long before the conversion of Constantine, the Christian care of the poor had been impressive,” he writes.21 Brown notes that by the year 251, the bishop of Rome claimed that he was providing financial support to 1,500 widows and other needy persons. Early bishops certainly deployed Christian giving to help grow the church and to put it in a more secure political position. And as with pagan philanthropy, the building and furnishing of churches provided oc...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction: What’s Missing from the Story of American Philanthropy
• 1. Unlocking the Universe’s Secret: The Theological Roots of American Charity
• 2. Enemies of This Ordinance of God: American Charity from the Colonial Period to the Civil War
• 3. Infinitely More than Almsgiving: American Charity from the Civil War to the Great Depression
• 4. To Love and Be Loved: The Growth of Professional Philanthropy and the Case for Philanthrolocalism
• Notes