9. Cornelius Vanderbilt built a fortune in shipping and railroads and was persuaded by his second wife to give millions of it away to the church
At the time of his death in 1877, Cornelius Vanderbilt had amassed the largest private fortune in the whole of the United States. He had also become a household name, famed not just for his wealth but for his generosity. Indeed, his philanthropy helped inspire numerous wealthy Americans who came after him, including his own descendants.
Vanderbilt’s origins were humble indeed. His father captained a boat ferrying passengers between Staten Island and Manhattan. Naturally, young Cornelius followed in his footsteps and became a boat captain himself. However, he was ambitious. As a young man, he went into business for himself. Starting out with just one boat, his ruthlessness and business acumen meant that, by the 1840s, he was one of America’s biggest operators. Not content with this, in the 1860s, he expanded into the railroad business, building a second empire.
It wasn’t until he was semi-retired that Vanderbilt decided to give some of his money away. In 1869, his second wife convinced him to donate $1 million to the Church so that they could establish a private university. He agreed and Vanderbilt University was founded in Nashville. After that, he donated various sums, almost all of them substantial, to found or improve churches across America.
Though he might have been born poor, Cornelius Vanderbilt died very rich. He only gave away a small proportion of his vast fortune. However, in embracing philanthropy in his final years, he set an impressive example that later generations of Vanderbilt would follow.