Philanthropy at the Chautauqua Institution By
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
THE CONSCIENCE OF CAPITAL: PHILANTHROPY AT THE CHAUTAUQUA INSTITUTION BY PAUL BENSON DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2012 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Professor Janet Dixon Keller, Chair Professor Nancy A. Abelmann Professor Emeritus Edward M. Bruner Professor Norman K. Denzin ABSTRACT This work seeks to demonstrate that philanthropy at Chautauqua Institution is a way of promoting, designing, preserving and protecting an idealized intellectual, aesthetic, spiritual, and emotional “way of life.” Of central importance is an understanding of how and why donors give and how the Institution shapes and is shaped by its contributors. The Institution promotes an ideology of multi-tiered life-long-learning, credibility, and need; donors respond through volunteering, stewardship, and donations; ultimately benefiting as the members of the collectivity receiving their own gifts. The Institution provides the setting and the donors embed themselves within it through personally identifying with its philosophy, history, and grounds. Donors join with the Institution through participation in its governance and programs, and through philanthropic activities. My argument/hypothesis is that there is a progression of ideological transference that fuels this philanthropy through time: Institution to donor and donor to Institution. When the Institution provides the appropriate philanthropic goals to Chautauquans; where the ideologies of Chautauquans and the Institution intersect and set each other into production; then decisions to donate are made, and the checks are written. A definitive act of personal engagement with the Institution is confirmed through philanthropic acts. The challenge of the work then is to explain the underlying conditions, the cultural environment and the mechanisms that generate this process. For that I position my work within critical scholarship focusing on philanthropy and augment that literature through insights gained by applying the work of Mikhail Bakhtin on ideological exchange, the work of Marcel Mauss on gift exchange, and the perspectives of Keith Basso, Akhil Gupta, and James Ferguson on the nature of place. ii To my mother Peg Benson, historian Alfreda Irwin and wife Kim Weborg-Benson. The three people responsible for my life, this work and my happiness. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge the assistance of the many people who have generously given their time toward making this project a reality. My thanks are to the wonderful memory of Chautauqua Historian Alfreda Irwin, without her kind and thorough assistance throughout the research phase of this process; I would not have brought the dissertation to fruition. I especially thank Richard Miller, Daniel Bratton, Tom Becker, David Carnahan and Chris Redmond for their time and the insights they provided into the philanthropic processes at Chautauqua and into Chautauqua itself. A very special thanks to Janet Dixon Keller who has expanded the definition of patience in allowing me after these many years to return to this work and bring it back to life as a dissertation. Her skill as an editor and advisor led me to many new and important understandings in writing ethnography, developing and applying theory and uncovering crucial details that led to the insights that determined the content of this work. I also wish to thank my dissertation committee Nancy Abelmann, Edward Bruner, and Norman Denzin for their careful reading of the text and guidance through the writing and dissertation defense. I also think the following individuals for their time during our interviews and to thank them for their hospitality: Loraine Allen, Andy Anderson, Mina and Nancy Arnn, Jack and Kay Bailey, Lynn Ballard, Richard Bechtolt, Robert Bargar, Rindi Barmore, Charles Bestor, Robert Birmingham, Paul Branch, Gilbert Burgeson, David Carnahan, Marylyn Carpenter, Edward Cherry, Jack and Dorothy Clark, George Cornell, James Copeland, Mary Francis Bestor Cram, Andy Dickson, Silvia Faust, Geoff Follansbee, George "Shorty" Follansbee, Ken Fradin, Howard Gibbs, Joe and Toni Goldfarb, Susan Harding, Walter Harf, Charles Heinz, Bill and Dorothy Hill, Paul Irion, Joe Johnson, Barry Joseph, Richard & Marianne Karslake, Mrs. Karslake, Tom iv and Irene Kramer, Jack Lesser, Rebecca Lister, Kay Logan, Ross Mackenzie, James Mando, Marty Merkley, Jack Morris, Bess Morrison, Robert Osburn, Norm and Isabel Pederson, Norma Pollock, Miriam Reading, Richard Redington, Harold Reed, Eva Rosenberg, Jeffrey Simpson, Carol Smith, Tom Smith, Cindy Vinciquerra, Jack Voelker, David Williams, Eric and Alisa Wolf, David Zarou, and Robert Zeller. The dissertation would not have been possible without them. v TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: THEORIES AND DEFINITIONS……………………………………….………..1 CHAPTER 2: THE CHAUTAUQUA INSTITUTION: “THE PLACE THAT NEVER LEAVES YOU”…..…………..………………………………………………...30 CHAPTER 3: CERTAIN ANTECEDENTS TO CHAUTAUQUA INSTITUTION AND A SKETCH OF THE PHILANTHROPIC HISTORY FROM 1874 TO 1990………...….79 CHAPTER 4: THE CHAUTAUQUA CHALLENGE CAMPAIGN………...…………...……106 CHAPTER 5: THE STRUCTURE OF CHAUTAUQUA’S PHILANTHROPY: THE MILLER REVOLUTION…………………………………………..136 CHAPTER 6: THE CONFLUENCE OF IDEOLOGIES………………………………………153 CHAPTER 7: THE CONSCIENCE OF CAPITAL: THE DYNAMICS OF PHILANTHROPY……………………………………………………………………………...184 REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………………243 APPENDIX A.………………………………………………………………………………….251 APPENDIX B.………………………………………………………………………………….260 APPENDIX C.………………………………………………………………………………….262 APPENDIX D.………………………………………………………………………………….263 APPENDIX E.………………………………………………………………………………….265 APPENDIX F.………………………………………………………………………………….266 vi Chapter 1 Theories and Definitions Gathering, Each to Give and to Receive . This work seeks to demonstrate that philanthropy at Chautauqua Institution is a way of promoting, designing, preserving and protecting an idealized intellectual, aesthetic, spiritual, and emotional “way of life.” Of central importance is an understanding of how and why donors give and how the Institution shapes and is shaped by its contributors. The Institution promotes an ideology of multi-tiered life- long-learning, credibility, and need; donors respond through volunteering, stewardship, and donations; ultimately benefiting as the members of the collectivity receiving their own gifts. The Institution provides the setting and the donors embed themselves within it through personally identifying with its philosophy, history, and grounds. Donors join with the Institution through participation in its governance and programs, and through philanthropic activities. My argument/hypothesis is that there is a progression of ideological transference that fuels this philanthropy through time: Institution to donor and donor to Institution. When the Institution provides the appropriate philanthropic goals to Chautauquans; where the ideologies of Chautauquans and the Institution intersect and set each other into production; then decisions to donate are made, and the checks are written. A definitive act of personal engagement with the Institution is confirmed through philanthropic acts. The challenge of the work then is to explain the underlying conditions, the cultural environment and the mechanisms that generate this process. For that I position my work within critical scholarship focusing on philanthropy and augment that literature through insights gained by applying the work of Mikhail Bakhtin on ideological exchange, the work of Marcel Mauss on gift exchange, and the perspectives of Keith Basso, Akhil Gupta, and James Ferguson on the nature of place.1 Review: While the literature continues to grow in nonprofit and philanthropic studies addressing philanthropic processes, it is relatively new to anthropology. Nonetheless there are some anthropological contributions with which to ground my own study. While Teresa Odendahl, an anthropologist studying philanthropy and working in the field, told me that there are only a small number of anthropologists concentrating in this area (Odendahl 2003) and a 2010 library data base search has confirmed that this remains true, I summarize and critique in what follows the anthropological approaches to philanthropy and related topics. 1 Teresa Odendahl’s book Charity Begins at Home: Generosity and Self-Interest among the Philanthropic Elite opened the door for this study (1990). Through her interviews with over 140 ‘millionaires’ she examined how the wealthy manage power and control over institutions and politics through philanthropy. She describes the philanthropic elites as a specific subculture within branches of old or new money and she explores their variation by gender and age cohorts as well. She offers ideas on restructuring philanthropic activity to make it more publicly accountable in light of its potential to run outside of the democratic process. In line with the contributions of my own research, Odendahl argues that if the channeling of vast sources of wealth is not part of the public debate or the legislative process, and as it has the tendency to be self-serving, “American philanthropy is a system of ‘generosity’ by which the wealthy exercise social control and help themselves more than they do others” (1990:245). Francie Ostrower’s book focusing on New York City donors Why the Wealthy Give: The Culture of Elite Philanthropy examines how the wealthy "take philanthropy . and adapt