Building a Moral Metropolis: Philanthropy and City Building in Houston, Texas

Abstract

When Houston Texas grew from a sleepy, southern entrepot to sunbelt metropolis, the city’s commercial civic elite adopted a systematic approach of organized philanthropy as a way to rationalize giving and bring it in line with modern urban services. As a select set of city builders transformed local giving from random charitable impulses to increasingly complex philanthropic undertakings, their benevolent behavior took many forms, from scientific charity to regulatory action and, finally, to detached foundations. Over time, more rational giving also became more professional and wealthy donors sought a new status—that of philanthropist—and with it, the great cultural authority to address the city’s social problems. Philanthropists in Houston fashioned a number of mechanisms to realize their vision of what the modern metropolis should be. Understanding this vision adds to our knowledge of the multiple voices that derived power and status from their efforts to guide the construction of growing cities.