George W. Brackenridge: Maverick Philanthropist - download pdf or read online

George W. Brackenridge (1832–1920) was once a paradox to his fellow Texans. A Republican in a solidly Democratic nation, a financier in a cattleman's state, a Prohibitionist within the goodtime city of San Antonio, he committed his energies to creating a fortune in basic terms to provide it to philanthropic causes.

Indiana born, Brackenridge got here to Texas in 1853, yet left the kingdom throughout the Civil conflict to function U.S. Treasury agent and interact within the wartime cotton alternate. Later he settled in San Antonio, the place he based a financial institution and invested in railroads, utilities, and different enterprises.

Some of Brackenridge's contemporaries by no means forgave him for his Civil conflict profession, yet others knew him as a public-spirited citizen, educator, and suggest of civil rights. He cared little for what others considered him. but, he confided as soon as in an extraordinary interview that his fondest ambition used to be to depart the realm a greater position for his having lived in it. To this finish, he gave generously of himself and his means.

His best-known benefaction is Brackenridge Park, which he gave to town of San Antonio, yet so much of his contributions have been within the box of schooling. As regent of the college of Texas for greater than twenty-five years, he gave the establishment its first dormitory, a wide tract of land in Austin, and innumerable smaller presents. He additionally provided to underwrite the charges of the college whilst Governor James E. Ferguson vetoed the appropriation invoice for 1917–1919.

Other academic associations to learn from his largess have been the general public colleges of San Antonio, a Negro collage in Seguin, and the collage of Texas clinical department at Galveston. moreover, he assisted person scholars, particularly girls, via scholarships and loans.

Believing that the betterment of humanity lay in schooling, Brackenridge prepared for the continuation of his philanthropies. via his will he created the George W. Brackenridge starting place, the 1st of its style in Texas and one of many first within the United States.

Marilyn McAdams Sibley's examine of George W. Brackenridge is the 1st biography of a big and, for his time, strange Texan. It provides new fabric about the Mexican cotton alternate throughout the Civil warfare, at the beginnings of banking in Texas, and on larger schooling in Texas.