FOUNDERS AND FUNDERS: Institutional Expansion and the Emergence of the American Cultural Capital 1840-1940 Valerie Paley Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2011 © 2011 Valerie Paley All rights reserved ABSTRACT Founders and Funders: Institutional Expansion and the Emergence of the American Cultural Capital 1840-1940 Valerie Paley The pattern of American institution building through private funding began in metropolises of all sizes soon after the nation’s founding. But by 1840, Manhattan’s geographical location and great natural harbor had made it America’s preeminent commercial and communications center and the undisputed capital of finance. Thus, as the largest and richest city in the United States, unsurprisingly, some of the most ambitious cultural institutions would rise there, and would lead the way in the creation of a distinctly American model of high culture. This dissertation describes New York City’s cultural transformation between 1840 and 1940, and focuses on three of its enduring monuments, the New York Public Library, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Metropolitan Opera. It seeks to demonstrate how trustees and financial supporters drove the foundational ideas, day-to-day operations, and self- conceptions of the organizations, even as their institutional agendas enhanced and galvanized the inherently boosterish spirit of the Empire City. Many board members were animated by the dual impulses of charity and obligation, and by their own lofty edifying ambitions for their philanthropies, their metropolis, and their country. Others also combined their cultural interests with more vain desires for social status. Although cohesive, often overlapping social groups founded and led most elite institutions, important moments of change in leadership in the twentieth century often were precipitated by the breakdown of a social order once restricted to Protestant white males. By the 1920s and 1930s, the old culture of exclusion—of Jews, of women, of ethnic minorities in general—was no longer an accepted assumption, nor was it necessarily good business. In general, institutions that embraced the notion of diversity and adapted to forces of historical change tended to thrive. Those that held fast to the paradigms of the past did not. Typically, when we consider the history and development of such major institutions, the focus often has been on the personalities and plans of the paid directors and curatorial programs. This study, however, redirects some of the attention towards those who created the institutions and hired and fired the leaders. While a common view is that membership on a board was coveted for social status, many persons who led these efforts had little abiding interest in Manhattan’s social scene. Rather, they demanded more of their boards and expected their fellow- trustees to participate in more ways than financially. As the twentieth century beckoned, rising diversity in the population mirrored the emerging multiplicity in thought and culture; boards of trustees were hardly exempt from this progression. This dissertation also examines the subtle interplay of the multi-valenced definition of “public” along with the contrasting notion of “private.” In the early 1800s, a public institution was not typically government funded, and more often functioned independent of the state, supported by private individuals. “Public,” instead, meant for the people. Long before the income tax and charitable deductions for donations, there was a full range of voluntary organizations supported by private contributions in the United States. This dissertation argues that in a privatist spirit, New York elites seized a leadership role, both individually and collectively, to become cultural arbiters for the city and the nation. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................................................................1 PART ONE In Pursuit of American Culture..................................................................................................15 PROLOGUE ..................................................................................................................................18 CHAPTER ONE “For the Advancement of Useful Knowledge”: Private Libraries for the Public Good ............................................................................................35 CHAPTER TWO Unabated Energy and Resolute Will: The Founding of the Metropolitan Museum of Art .......................................................................52 CHAPTER THREE “Music Loving & Enthusiastic, but Not Yet of Sufficient Culture”: Early Opera in Manhattan..............................................................................................................78 PART TWO Into the Twentieth Century.......................................................................................................101 CHAPTER FOUR World Metropolis: The Consolidation of New York City and the Building of a Colossal Library System ...........................................................................104 CHAPTER FIVE “If we have committed errors, it has been at our own expense”: The Metropolitan Museum Builds...............................................................................................144 CHAPTER SIX “The Spirit of the Parvenu”: Enter Otto Kahn.............................................................................195 PART THREE The Spirit of the New Humanism.............................................................................................235 CHAPTER SEVEN “We can do our little part while we are here”: Towards a Modern Library ................................237 i CHAPTER EIGHT “A New Mental Attitude”: The Metropolitan Museum Broadens its Reach...............................260 CHAPTER NINE Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? The Opera Goes Begging.......................................................301 CONCLUSION Navigating a Negotiation .............................................................................................................371 NOTES.........................................................................................................................................383 BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................................................................................................451 ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS It is only fitting that a dissertation with the word “funders” in the title should begin by acknowledging those who helped finance this project. I am indebted to Columbia University’s Department of History for taking a chance on this unconventional student and extending me a Hofstadter Fellowship. I also am grateful for the aid of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, which granted me a fellowship for my research at the New York Public Library, as well as Columbia’s Program in American Studies, for which I served as an undergraduate advisor. In addition, those who shepherd the archives at the New York Public Library, the Metropolitan Museum, and the Metropolitan Opera happily opened their files, photocopying machines, and space to me, and I thank Thomas Lannon, James Moske, and John Pennino for their help and generosity. My debts, however, are greater than financial, and it is no exaggeration that my work has drawn on the support, advice, camaraderie, and example of each and every one of the friends, colleagues, and scholars I have known through the arduous process of two rounds of graduate school. They listened to my ideas on a large and sometimes banal topic: social elites in New York City. Already eleven years out of college, I was fortunate to be welcomed into the Liberal Studies M.A. program at Columbia by Daphne Estwick, who advised me in immeasurable ways through my American Studies concentration, and whose confidence in my abilities was unflagging, buoying my own intellectual insecurity. Upon graduation, with no prospects for work and scattered ambitions, I volunteered at the New-York Historical Society and at the Museum of the City of New York, which placed me in the orbit of the professionals who would become my friends, mentors, and co-workers. I consider myself lucky to have had such willing and able role models from whom I have learned an incalculable amount. iii Returning to Columbia for a Ph.D. in History, I met a stunning array of scholars— professors, fellow-graduate students, and undergraduate students of my own—who challenged my ways of thinking and helped hone my own academic skills. I cannot appropriately convey the depth of my gratitude to my professors, especially Kenneth T. Jackson, Elizabeth Blackmar, Casey Blake, Barbara Fields, Mary Marshall Clark, Ron Grele, and Rosalind Rosenberg, with whom I have felt honored to work. I never would have anticipated that the process of going back to school later in life would be so enriched by the friendship of an academic cohort, most members of which were almost twenty years my junior. Their intellectual agility and enthusiasm for a range of subjects from the esoteric to the absurdly mundane—and their ability to discuss any of these topics with the same sort of cerebral spirit—were a joyful inspiration to me. I am privileged to have known such talented individuals. Most fortunately, I was blessed to meet Jenna Alden and Megan Doherty the moment classes began, and to enjoy their unwavering companionship through our years of