Mrs. Astor

Ways of the World has talked before about modern-day philanthropists, in particular, how they put their funds earned in business to good use for society. Brooke Astor is another example; while she inherited the funds she gave toward a multitude of good causes in New York City, those funds had their origin in business efforts.

The first John Jacob Astor traded furs all the way to Fort Astoria, Oregon, at the mouth of the Columbia River by 1811. From the 1830s (according to Wikipedia), he believed New York would become one of the world's great cities and he began to buy up huge parcels of Manhattan real estate. At his death in 1848, he passed on a fortune estimated at $20,000,000. However, a biographer, James Stokesbury, reminds us that Astor was not the nicest man in the world. "To the end, money was his passion, and to make it his men evicted widows and debauched Indians." [http://www.historynet.com/, American History Magazine]

Mrs. Astor was not out to make up for this lack of character in her husband's ancestor or his other progeny; she was, by her own estimation, trying to leave society better off than it would have been without her. She could clearly do no more. But perhaps the good she has done with this money can put salve on that earlier pain. Regardless, her many beneficiaries are surely appreciative of her largesse. I know firsthand. My Church, St. Ann & the Holy Trinity in Brooklyn, was the recipient of grants from the Astor Foundation, one of them among the last grants before it was dissolved. These funds provided for the restoration of several of our mid-19th Century stained glass windows, the first figural windows produced in the United States. The one shown here is a 40-foot masterpiece that towers over the entire sacred space. The church building and these windows were provided in the 1840s by another businessman, Edgar John Bartow, a Brooklyn paper manufacturer.

So as we think about these people and how they make their money, let us also give thanks for those stewards who put that money to such marvelous uses. People in Harlem, who live on Astor Row, know this about the houses they live in. The staff of the Metropolitan Museum knows this; not only did Mrs. Astor support the museum's collections, she gave an endowment to provide in perpetuity for the staff Christmas party. She supported the New York Public Library most of all, and we ordinary people who just want to browse for books have her to thank for the Library's acquisition of an old department store building that became the Mid-Manhattan Library. So thank you again, Mrs. Astor. And thanks too to old John Jacob Astor, who began with almost nothing and left us the wherewithal to build a future – and for St. Ann's Church to preserve its past.

"The Glorification of Christ" by William J. Bolton and Robert Bolton, 1844-1848. Church of St. Ann & the Holy Trinity, Brooklyn, New York. Restored 1997 by David Fraser and the Staff of the Brooklyn Stained Glass Conservation Center. Photo by David Fraser.