Who Is Andrew W. Mellon? What Did He Accomplish?

Andrew W. Mellon (1855-1937) was an American businessman and statesman. He served as secretary of the Treasury underneath three Republican presidents—Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover— and targeted on lowering debt, decreasing enterprise taxes, and balancing the federal funds. Mellon’s insurance policies had been controversial, and he resigned after the inventory market crash of 1929.

Early Life and Training

Mellon was born in 1855 in Pittsburgh to Decide Thomas and Sarah Jane Mellon. He was their sixth youngster, however solely the fourth to outlive infancy. The Mellons had been Irish immigrants who had settled in Pittsburgh within the early 1800s. The household began a financial institution in western Pennsylvania, T. Mellon and Sons. 

Privately educated at residence, Mellon joined the household enterprise on the age of 17. He attended Western College—now referred to as the College of Pittsburgh—however by no means accomplished a level. Throughout his time with T. Mellon and Sons, the financial institution grew to become one of the crucial outstanding establishments in western Pennsylvania, offering financing as the realm grew into a serious industrial area. Mellon helped discovered and fund such corporations as Gulf Oil and Koppers. 

Mellon had two youngsters, Ailsa and Paul, who each based charitable organizations.  

Notable Accomplishments

Mellon was appointed secretary of the Treasury in 1921 by President Warren G. Harding. Though he had been concerned in Republican politics in Pittsburgh, his appointment introduced him nationwide recognition. 

Mellon served in the course of the booming Nineteen Twenties, a decade identified for outstanding financial progress and enlargement. He gave his identify to the Mellon Plan, which was handed by Congress in 1924. The plan decreased taxes on companies and rich people, instituted larger tariffs, and lower authorities spending.

The Mellon Plan plan was designed to encourage financial progress and enterprise enlargement, and it helped gas the ’20s bull marketplace for shares. Notably, it was credited with lowering the nation’s debt some $7 billion by 1929. However each Mellon and his plan confronted vital criticism after the inventory market crash of 1929. 

He was named the ambassador to Nice Britain in 1932, however after one 12 months of service, returned to non-public enterprise. With the arrival of the brand new Democratic administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in 1933, Mellon discovered himself charged with tax invasion in a case involving his artwork assortment, however he was by no means convicted.

Wealth and Philanthropy

By the top of the Nineteen Twenties, Mellon’s private fortune was rumored to be as giant as $600 million, making him one of many nation’s richest males. In his later years, he grew to become a philanthropist, gifting away thousands and thousands to academic and charitable organizations in Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C.

Mellon gave each cash and art work to determine the Nationwide Gallery of Artwork in Washington, D.C. He additionally based the Mellon Institute in Pittsburgh. Within the Nineteen Sixties, the college merged with Andrew Carnegie’s Carnegie Institute of Know-how to type what’s now referred to as Carnegie Mellon College.

His Legacy Right this moment

Mellon was a political conservative, and he promoted measures that protected the rich and companies within the perception that wealth would “trickle down” to decrease ranges of society, an concept that lives on to this present day in some circles. He was identified, particularly, for his conservative tax and spending insurance policies, and for the establishment of the Mellon Plan, later referred to as the Income Act of 1924. Throughout his life, he was one of many wealthiest males within the nation, and he’s remembered as a businessman and philanthropist.

The Mellons’ household financial institution, referred to as Mellon Nationwide Financial institution in Andrew Mellon’s lifetime, later grew to become Mellon Monetary Company, which merged with the Financial institution of New York in 2007 to turn out to be right now’s BNY Mellon. 

The Backside Line

A controversial determine, Andrew W. Mellon was one of many wealthiest people of his time. As a politician and statesman, he was chargeable for introducing tax reforms and insurance policies that inspired financial progress and enterprise enlargement, however he obtained vital criticism after the inventory market crash of 1929 and in the course of the Nice Despair. His views are nonetheless a subject of debate amongst economists, as Mellon was an advocate for trickle-down insurance policies and an opponent of progressive taxation.