num_pages: 304
description: In this fascinating account, Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz traces the establishment of several of the great cultural institutions of Chicago--thee Art Institute, the Newberry and John Crerar Libraries, the Field Museum, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the University of Chicago--as well as the motivations of the philanthropists responsible for their beginnings. Largely self-made businessmen, these cultural philanthropists gave both time and money to improve the status of the city that had earned their loyalty by giving them wealth. Their dislike of the changing social forces of the time, along with their idealistic notions of culture, led them to hope that these institutions might provoke a spiritual awakening and purification in the city. These businessmen, however, formed an Anglo-Saxon, native-born elite in a city of immigrants, and their institutions, by intent or neglect, excluded the lower classes. Horowitz follows the development of these institutions as, gradually, those directing them began to broaden their perception of the public to be served and to alter their views about how this might be accomplished.
language: English
title: Culture and the City: Cultural Philanthropy in Chicago from the 1880s to 1917
titlecomplete: Culture and the City: Cultural Philanthropy in Chicago from the 1880s to 1917
genres: Academic, Education, Nonfiction, School, Cultural Studies
ratings_count: 65
publisher: University of Chicago Press