George Peabody provided benefactions of well over $8 million ($240,000,000 in 2023 dollars), most of them in his lifetime.
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George Peabody was an American financier and philanthropist. He is often considered the father of modern philanthropy.
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business · American-British entrepreneur and philanthropist (1795–1869) · financier · entrepreneur · banker · also George Peabody, Peabody
Born 18 February 1795 · Died 4 November 1869 · Q910862
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George Peabody provided benefactions of well over $8 million ($240,000,000 in 2023 dollars), most of them in his lifetime.
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Google honored Peabody with a Google Doodle on the 151st anniversary of Peabody being awarded the Congressional Gold Medal
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Peabody was one of the first 29 honorees to be elected to the Hall of Fame for Great Americans, located on what was then the campus of New York University (and is now that of Bronx Community College), at University Heigh
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Stands next to the Peabody Institute, in Mount Vernon Park, part of the Mount Vernon neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland
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1875, George Peabody College for Teachers, now the Peabody College of Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee.
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Died 1869-11-04.
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Aged 74, at the house of his friend Sir Curtis Lampson
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The Peabody Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee, was named in his memory
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To the town (now city) of Peabody, in his honor
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Peabody was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society
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Was awarded the United States Congressional Gold Medal, an honorary doctorate of laws by Harvard University, and an honorary doctorate in civil law by Oxford University
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Retired fully (taking much of his capital, amounting to over $10,000,000, or £2,000,000)
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Was made a Freeman of the City of London, the motion being proposed by Charles Reed in recognition of his financial contribution to London's poor
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And their joint business became the global financial services firm J
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To form Peabody, Morgan & Co
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Offended many of his American guests at a Fourth of July dinner when he chose to toast Queen Victoria before US President Franklin Pierce; Pierce's future successor, James Buchanan, then Ambassador to London, left in
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The Arctic explorer Elisha Kane named the waterway off the north-west coast of Greenland Peabody Bay, in honor of Peabody, who had funded his expedition
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When the US Congress refused to support the American section at the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace, Peabody advanced £3000 (then worth $15,000; equivalent to about $450,000 in 2024 dollars) to improve the exhibit
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Conspired with Barings to push Maryland into resuming payment by setting up a political slush fund to spread propaganda for debt resumption and elect legislators who would placate their investors
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(and later allegedly had a mistress in Brighton, England, who bore him a daughter), he never married
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Peabody took up residence in London, and the following year, he started a banking business trading on his own account
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Moved to London (which was then the capital of world finance) where he became the most noted American banker and helped to establish the young country's international credit
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Took up permanent residence in London, where he lived for the rest of his life
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And establishing a branch office in Liverpool
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And the firm became Peabody, Riggs & Co
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Seeking to use his firm and his agency to sell American states' bond issues, to raise capital for those states' various programs of "internal improvements" (principally the transportation infrastructure, such as roads, r
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To purchase wares, and to negotiate the sale of American cotton in Lancashire
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Moved to Baltimore, where he made his career and would live for the next 20 years
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Provided financial backing for what became the wholesale dry goods firm of Riggs, Peabody & Co
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Born 1795-02-18.
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