Universities and colleges--Finance; Universities and colleges--Endowments; Education, Higher--Finance; Clinton (N.Y.); Hamilton College (Clinton, N.Y.)
Format
correspondence
Genre
Business correspondence
Date
Between February 10, 1903 and 1977
Physical Description
microfilm, 16 mm, b&w
Note (Reel no.)
Reel 77
Note (Status of gift)
Promised but lapsed
Note
PDF may contain multiple grant documents.
Date based on grant approval.
Note (Historical note)
In 1902, the president of Hamilton College, Melancthon Woolsey Stryker, had asked Andrew Carnegie for a grant of $60,000 for a library and dormitory. Carnegie’s reply proved that he was no pushover and that the 'Carnegie way' of due diligence and hard -nosed, strategic grantmaking was well-established from the beginning: 'I think the sure way to injure Hamilton would be to give the sums you name in a lump. Hamilton would not be Hamilton if you spent that amount of money rapidly…. S[o]me day you will be able to fix your mind upon some great need, and you will find me disposed to give you $100,000 to supply it, but not a cent until I am thoroughly satisfied that the addition[s] which this would make will be utilized and are urgently needed.' Apparently Carnegie was satisfied quickly. A year later, he gave Hamilton $100,000 worth of U.S. Steel bonds for student scholarships and to build Carnegie Residence Hall. Carnegie was delighted to make the award, he wrote to Root, because it gave him 'great pleasure in thinking of the happiness you will have in being able thus to aid the Alma Mater of the Root family. The tree is known by its fruits, and that must be a good tree.' Six years after that, Carnegie gave Hamilton College an additional $200,000 (and a matching $50,000 grant came from John D. Rockefeller) through Root — who had recently been elected senator from New York — to establish the Elihu Root Peace Fund, devoted to faculty salaries and honoring Root for his 'unique services' as secretary of state in the cause of international peace, as The New York Times reported." [SOURCE: Henríquez, Andrés. "Root and Carnegie: Friends With A Vision." Hamilton College Alumni Review, Spring 2011, https://www.hamilton.edu/magazine/spring11/the-hill-in-history. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018.]