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RESUMEN

George Foster Peabody (Jul. 27, 1852 – Mar. 4, 1938), American banker and philanthropist, was born in Columbus, Georgia, to native New Englanders. His father, George Henry Peabody, who hailed from a line of merchants and bankers in Connecticut, ran a successful general store in Columbus. There, he and his wife, Elvira Peabody, raised four children. Although George Foster grew up in a well-to-do household in Columbus, when the Civil War ravaged many areas of the South, the Peabody family too lost its wealth. The family moved to a working-class neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York, in 1866.

In Brooklyn, Peabody worked as an errand boy. His formal education was limited to a few months at Deer Hill Institute in Danbury, Connecticut, a private Episcopal boys school, before moving to Brooklyn with his parents. Thereafter, Peabody spent his evenings reading extensively at the library of the Brooklyn YMCA. He would eventually refer to the YMCA as his “alma mater.” He met Spencer Trask, young investment banker and future business partner, at the Reformed Church in Brooklyn Heights where they both worshipped. Soon after, in 1881, Peabody became a partner at Spencer Trask & Company - then only a nascent investment company.

In the 1880s and 1890s, Spencer Trask & Company took the lead in financing a number of industrial enterprises ranging from electric lighting corporations to beet sugar. The company also financed large-scale infrastructure projects, most prominently railroad construction in the Western United States and Mexico. Through the network and experience he built while at Spencer Trask & Company, Peabody became a director in a number of corporations across a variety of industries including Edison Electric Company, and later the General Electric Company.

As one of the nation’s corporate leaders Peabody was engaged on a wide range of political issues. Beginning in the 1880s he was active in the Democratic Party and supported Grover Cleveland’s successful run for the presidency in 1892. As a “Gold Democrat” he opposed William Jennings Bryan’s candidacy and support of Free Silver in 1896 but shared with Bryan a suspicion of the expansionist foreign policy promoted by Henry Cabot Lodge, Theodore Roosevelt and other Republicans. In 1898, as tensions rose between the United States and Spain over Cuban independence, Peabody spoke out powerfully against American intervention. After the war Peabody supported efforts that he believed would promote Cuban independence, including the Harvard Summer School for Cuban teachers, to which he donated $50.

In 1903, Peabody received honorary degrees from Harvard and Washington and Lee Universities, followed by an honorary degree from the University of Georgia in 1906.
That year he also retired from business and dedicated the remainder of his life to public service. Some of Peabody’s projects in this area included support for the single tax, women’s suffrage, and government ownership of railroads. Peabody was passionate about making public education more accessible across the southern United States, particularly for African Americans. He co-founded and directed the General Education Board, the Southern Education Board, and the Anna T. Jeans Foundation. His philanthropy supported southern educational institutions for African Americans including the Penn School in South Carolina, the Hampton Institute in Virginia, Tuskegee in Alabama, and the American Church Institute for Negroes. Peabody went on to become one of the University of Georgia’s main benefactors. In 1941, the University of Georgia created the Peabody Awards in his honor - the most prestigious and oldest award for electronic media in the world.

In 1920, at the age of 68, George Foster Peabody married Katrina Trask, Spencer Trask’s widow, eleven years after his business partner and friend passed in a railroad accident. In 1926, he adopted a daughter, Marjorie P. Waite. He remained a loyal Democrat, active in support of the only two Democrats elected after 1892, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His friendship with Roosevelt included inviting him to Warm Springs, Georgia, to help him recuperate from polio, a visit that resulted in FDR building what became known as the “Little White House” at Warm Springs in 1932.

Peabody died in 1938 at his home in Warm Springs,

Further Reading

George Foster Peabody’s papers are held at The Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

1. Cullen, David O’Donald, “Peabody, George Foster,” American National biography (1999)

2. Ware, Louise. George Foster Peabody, Banker, Philanthropist, Publicist (1951)