Noblesse oblige

Focuses on three areas of philanthropic endeavor that previously have received little scholarly attention: family welfare, medical charities, and cultural institutions. Traces the course of charity through the activities of four philanthropic generations of civil stewards: the volunteers of the 1850s, Gilded Age plutocrats, progressive iconoclasts, and Jazz Age donors. Traces the complex transition from a service ethic to a leisure ethic in the decades before the Great Depression.