 From its earliest days
Baltimore has been blessed with individuals of
character who combined business success with
concern for the public good. Among their common
qualities were perseverance, self-discipline,
patience, the ability to live within one’s
means, responsibility, honesty, and an innate
desire to help others. The results of their
enormous energy, far-sightedness, and resolve are
all about us, seen in institutions and funds that
they lastingly dedicated to the improvement of
life for generation after generation.
In 1845, an
article in the New York Sun estimated
that there were twenty-one millionaires in the
United States. By the end of the nineteenth
century the number exceeded four thousand. A
study of their giving habits published in the Review
of Reviews in 1893 revealed that the
level of philanthropic giving within this group
varied significantly from city to city. Baltimore
ranked highest on the list, with 49
percent of her population of millionaires listed
as donors to benevolent causes.
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