Mellon: An American LifeA landmark work from one of the preeminent historians of our time: the first published biography of Andrew W. Mellon, the American colossus who bestrode the worlds of industry, government, and philanthropy, leaving his transformative stamp on each. Following a boyhood in nineteenth-century Pittsburgh, during which he learned from his Scotch-Irish immigrant father the lessons of self-sufficiency and accumulation of wealth, Andrew Mellon overcame painful shyness to become one of America’s greatest financiers. Across an unusually diverse range of enterprises, from banking to oil to aluminum manufacture, he would build a legendary personal fortune, tracking America’s course to global economic supremacy. Personal happiness, however, eluded him: his loveless marriage at forty-five to a British girl less than half his age ended in a scandalous divorce, and for all his best efforts, he would remain a stranger to his children. He had been bred to do one thing, and that he did with brilliant and innovative entrepreneurship. The Mellon way was to hold companies closely, including such iconic enterprises as Alcoa and Gulf Oil. Collecting art, a pursuit inspired by his close friend Henry Clay Frick, would become his only nonprofessional gratification. And by the end of his life, Mellon’s “pictures” would constitute one of the world’s foremost private collections. Mellon’s wealth and name allowed him to dominate Pennsylvania politics, and late in life he was invited to Washington. As treasury secretary under presidents Harding, Coolidge, and finally Hoover, he made the federal government run like a business—prefiguring the public official as CEO. But this man of straightforward conservative politics was no politician. He would be hailed as the architect of the Roaring Twenties, but, staying too long, would be blamed for the Great Depression, eventually to find himself a broken idol. The New Deal overthrew Andrew Mellon’s every fiscal assumption, starting with the imperative of balanced budgets. Indeed, he would become the emblem—and the scapegoat—for the Republican conviction and policy that the role of government is to help business create national wealth and jobs. At the age of seventy-nine, the former treasury secretary suffered the ultimate humiliation: prosecution by FDR’s government on charges of tax evasion. In the end Mellon would be exonerated, as he always trusted he would be, and throughout the trial, which lasted more than a year, he never abandoned what had become his last dream: to make a great gift to the American people. The National Gallery of Art remains his most tangible legacy, although he did not live to see its completion. The issues Andrew W. Mellon confronted—concerning government, business, influence, the individual and the public good—remain at the center of our national discourse to this day. Indeed, the positions he steadfastly held reemerged relatively intact with the Reagan revolution, having lain dormant since the New Deal. David Cannadine’s magisterial biography brings to life a towering, controversial figure, casting new light on our history and the evolution of our public values. |
Contents
A Family in History | 3 |
PART | 25 |
Boys and Banks 187387 | 58 |
My Brother and | 89 |
Mergers and Matrimony | 123 |
PART | 153 |
Separation and Divorce 190712 | 186 |
Business Almost as Usual 190714 | 215 |
Great Ideas | 356 |
Fortunes Zenith Russian Pictures | 395 |
Depression Departure | 435 |
PART FOUR | 471 |
The Tax Trial and the National | 505 |
The Gallery Established a Life | 546 |
A Fortune in History | 583 |
The Mellon Family | 622 |
Single Parent Aging Plutocrat | 245 |
The Rise and Fall of a Public Man 192133 | 275 |
Mellonizing America | 313 |
Abbreviations for Notes | 629 |
Acknowledgments | 735 |
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Common terms and phrases
Ailsa Alcoa Allegheny County American Andrew and Dick Andrew Mellon April August August 26 AWM diary AWM Letterbooks AWM papers bankers BJH papers brothers Bruce burgh capital Carnegie CFOST CHM to AWM Curphey David Finley December Democrats divorce Domestic Letterbook Duveen Bros Duveen papers economic father February February 24 federal Frick Gallery of Art Gulf Oil Hendrick Henry Clay Frick Hoover industrial interest interview January Judge Judge's July June Knoedler papers Koppers later letter London March March 14 McMullen Mellon & Sons Mellon Bank Mellon National Bank million Murray National Gallery Negley never NMM to AWM Nora Nora's November October paintings Paul Mellon percent Philander Knox Pitts PM papers political portrait president Republican Roosevelt Samber secretary Senate September soon Steel tax trial Thomas Mellon tion Treasury Washington wrote York