A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust

The A. W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, founded by Andrew W. Mellon in 1930, contributed funding to a variety of organizations, insitutions and programs until it dissolved in 1980. In its fifty year life the Trust made nearly $200,000,000 in contributions, including over $25,000,000 in termination grants at the time of its dissolution in 1980. On the national level, the A. W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust provided funding and support to The National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian Institute, Atlantic Council of the United States, as well as other national and international organizations. The Trust played an important role in the funding of the arts and culture life in Pittsburgh. Some of the recipients were The Carnegie Museum's International Exhibitions, the Carnegie Institute, the Three Rivers Arts Festival, the 1972 Pittsburgh Jazz Festival, the Selma Burke Art Center and three archeological expeditions for the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. In the field of education gifts from the Trust in 1949, the Trust helped establish the Graduate School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh. In addition, the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University, and Chatham College all benefited from gifts of endowed faculty chairs and grants for specific programs. Other local organizations that benefited from the Trust's financial support included Allegheny Conference on Community Development, Action Housing, Pittsburgh Regional Planning Association and Pennsylvania Economy League. It also helped establish the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy in 1951, with the building of Mellon Square Park in downtown Pittsburgh and in acquiring six parks for the Allegheny County Parks System. In 1954, in partnership with the Ford Foundation, the Trust helped launch the Metropolitan Pittsburgh Educational Television Station, later to become WQED.

Correspondence to Lewis Mumford from Adolph William Schmidt, Executive Vice President, A. W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust.