George Peabody

While touring the South in 1866, the London-based American financier George Peabody grew troubled by the depressed conditions he witnessed. Convinced that education was key to the region’s postwar recovery, he formed a plan for encouraging Southern states to develop public school systems. With a pledge of $2.1 million, he established the Peabody Education Fund “to promote and encourage the intellectual, moral, and industrial education of the destitute children of the Southern States.” Although Peabody intended to benefit Black and white students equally, virtually all Southern schools were racially segregated, and funds disproportionately went to whites-only schools.
The American artist George Peter Alexander Healy painted this portrait in London, where Peabody spent over thirty years accumulating a fortune as a merchant and financier. Considered the founder of modern philanthropy, Peabody donated much of his wealth to U.S. libraries, museums, and universities that still bear his name.