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(1800-1899)

1800 
The Library of Congress is established by an act of Congress.  Established with $5,000 appropriated by the legislation, the original library was destroyed when invading British troops set fire to the Capitol Building, burning and pillaging the library contents.  Retired President Thomas Jefferson offered his personal library, considered to be one of the finest in the United States, as a replacement. In January 1815, Congress accepted Jefferson's offer, appropriating $23,950 for his 6,487 books, and the new library’s foundation was laid.  The Library of Congress is recognized as the nation's oldest federal cultural institution and serves as the research arm of Congress. (Source: The Library of Congress)

1819
The women of Congregation Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia, and guided by Rebecca Gratz, create the Female Hebrew Benevolent Society.  It remains the oldest Jewish charity in continuous existence in the United States. The sole mission of the Society is to aid Jewish women in financial crisis whose needs extend beyond family and other communal resources. (Source: Jewish Federation of Philadelphia)

1835 
Alexis de Tocqueville completes “Democracy in America.”  Among his most important observations was the American disposition to organize and join voluntary associations which helped to provide charitable relief to those in need, and to discuss and offer solutions to societal problems. De Tocqueville noted that early America had no distinct class of wealth that could be turned to in times of need to relieve suffering. Associations necessarily formed to create the means to deal with problems and reflected a compassion for all those in trouble.

1837 
The term noblesse oblige was first used by F. A. Kemble who wrote in a letter, “To be sure, if ‘noblesse oblige,’ royalty must do so still more.” (Source: Oxford English Dictionary, and Noblesse Oblige.)

1851 
The YMCA movement spreads to the United States, and in 1853, the first YMCA for African Americans was founded in Washington, D.C. by Anthony Bowen, a freed slave.  (Source: YMCA of the USA)

1867 
Peabody Fund, the first of modern foundations, is established by financier George Peabody.  Mr. Peabody entrusted large sums of money in to a Board of Trustees to be administrated "for the welfare of the suffering South" through the education of white and black students.  Most important, the fund's money was used to encourage the establishment of state systems of free schools.  (Source: University of Virginia)

1889 
Andrew Carnegie writes "The Gospel of Wealth.”  (Source: Carnegie Corporation)

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