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.