ABSTRACT
From the Civil War, the twenty-four philanthropists who amassed the wealth forming the basis for the some fifty larger foundations they, or in some cases succeeding family members, established have been discussed historically and biographically. Most of the fifty foundations were established by men. Some of these men were immigrants, some were not; some were short, some were tall; some were happily married, some were unhappily married or not at all. Such comparisons, of a physical or social nature, become endless if one really starts drawing them. Only a few of the approximately fifty foundations did not engage in significant foreign activity at their beginnings. In the case of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the activity was inaugurated soon after they were founded and was engineered by the philanthropic donors themselves.
