I’m a big baseball fan – I’ve played baseball, I’ve coached baseball, I watch baseball (go A’s!). And, like
most avid baseball fans, I find intriguing parallels between the game of baseball and life. If you read on, you’ll
learn how a baseball fan’s brain can draw a comparison between Pleasanton’s grand dame of philanthropy,
Phoebe Apperson Hearst, and baseball immortal Babe Ruth.
What do Phoebe Hearst and Babe Ruth Have in Common?
| From the President's Laptop: The TVCF Perspective Summer 2007 |
In my last TVCF Perspective, I spoke of philanthropic icons Andrew Carnegie and Pleasanton’s own
Phoebe Apperson Hearst, who worked profound positive changes in American culture through strategic,
sustained programs of giving. Historian Kevin Robbins writes of Carnegie: “Andrew Carnegie… believed that
the absolute best investment a country can make is in the creation of an educated workforce. …He intended
that his great Carnegie libraries would help new generations of entrepreneurs become well-educated and go on
to benefit the nation.”*
A contemporary of Carnegie, Phoebe Apperson Hearst framed her own philanthropic “gospel,” calling on
wealthy women of her time to assume powerful roles as agents of social change beginning in their own
communities. So says Dr. Alexandra Nickliss, faculty member at City College of San Francisco and expert on
Phoebe Hearst. In particular, Hearst proposed that women of means give culture-changing support to
education and educational reform and to “those excluded or marginalized from America’s mainstream,
especially women,” so that they could “achieve independence, upward mobility, and political equality.”
(p. 576) **
Phoebe Apperson Hearst, herself, did exactly that. She began in 1891 with what may have been the first
university scholarships in the U.S. awarded on the basis of need, instituting in perpetuity five $300
scholarships for “worthy young women.” Then, Hearst launched a bold program of philanthropy that
promoted equality for women through the funding of buildings and architecture on the UC Berkeley campus:
"Hearst wrote to the university regents and proposed an architectural plan for the construction of two buildings
on campus. The first was the Hearst Mining Building … as a memorial to [her husband] George Hearst. The
second was Hearst Hall … to serve as a meeting place and gymnasium for women students and as a center for
campus activities. Hearst Hall would provide women with a space of their own so they would no longer have to
“eat their paper-bag luncheons in a corner of the restroom in Old North Hall.” …Hearst’s gifts addressed the
sorry plight of women students… and explicitly provided a younger generation of women with the same kind of
opportunities as men had to participate in college life." (p. 594)**
Hearst Hall became the centerpiece of campus activities, drawing women into the mainstream of campus life,
including politics and student government. Phoebe Apperson Hearst went on to become the first female
Regent of the University of California.
community, in our culture, and in the lives and futures of people? Clearly, some of us can do more than
others. Those of us with access to greater wealth have the opportunity – and if Phoebe Hearst is right, the real
calling as well – to give more, and to help make dramatic and lasting changes in our communities and even in
American culture. But all of us can give something. All of us can contribute.
baseball team knows that the goal of every player on the team is to contribute – to do whatever they can to
help the team win. Whether you’re a Hall-of-Fame pitcher, a home-run machine, a benching-riding utility
player who fills in when starters get injured, or a bullpen catcher warming up the next guy to take the mound,
you can contribute. You can do something for the team. It is the calling and the privilege of everyone on the
team to contribute.
regional team. All of us can contribute.
--David Rice
**Alexandra M. Nickliss, “Phoebe Apperson’s Hearst’s ‘Gospel of Wealth,’ 1883-1901,” Pacific Historical Review, 71 (2002).
Phoebe Apperson Hearst, who worked profound positive changes in American culture through strategic,
sustained programs of giving. Historian Kevin Robbins writes of Carnegie: “Andrew Carnegie… believed that
the absolute best investment a country can make is in the creation of an educated workforce. …He intended
that his great Carnegie libraries would help new generations of entrepreneurs become well-educated and go on
to benefit the nation.”*
A contemporary of Carnegie, Phoebe Apperson Hearst framed her own philanthropic “gospel,” calling on
wealthy women of her time to assume powerful roles as agents of social change beginning in their own
communities. So says Dr. Alexandra Nickliss, faculty member at City College of San Francisco and expert on
Phoebe Hearst. In particular, Hearst proposed that women of means give culture-changing support to
education and educational reform and to “those excluded or marginalized from America’s mainstream,
especially women,” so that they could “achieve independence, upward mobility, and political equality.”
(p. 576) **
Phoebe Apperson Hearst, herself, did exactly that. She began in 1891 with what may have been the first
university scholarships in the U.S. awarded on the basis of need, instituting in perpetuity five $300
scholarships for “worthy young women.” Then, Hearst launched a bold program of philanthropy that
promoted equality for women through the funding of buildings and architecture on the UC Berkeley campus:
"Hearst wrote to the university regents and proposed an architectural plan for the construction of two buildings
on campus. The first was the Hearst Mining Building … as a memorial to [her husband] George Hearst. The
second was Hearst Hall … to serve as a meeting place and gymnasium for women students and as a center for
campus activities. Hearst Hall would provide women with a space of their own so they would no longer have to
“eat their paper-bag luncheons in a corner of the restroom in Old North Hall.” …Hearst’s gifts addressed the
sorry plight of women students… and explicitly provided a younger generation of women with the same kind of
opportunities as men had to participate in college life." (p. 594)**
Hearst Hall became the centerpiece of campus activities, drawing women into the mainstream of campus life,
including politics and student government. Phoebe Apperson Hearst went on to become the first female
Regent of the University of California.
community, in our culture, and in the lives and futures of people? Clearly, some of us can do more than
others. Those of us with access to greater wealth have the opportunity – and if Phoebe Hearst is right, the real
calling as well – to give more, and to help make dramatic and lasting changes in our communities and even in
American culture. But all of us can give something. All of us can contribute.
baseball team knows that the goal of every player on the team is to contribute – to do whatever they can to
help the team win. Whether you’re a Hall-of-Fame pitcher, a home-run machine, a benching-riding utility
player who fills in when starters get injured, or a bullpen catcher warming up the next guy to take the mound,
you can contribute. You can do something for the team. It is the calling and the privilege of everyone on the
team to contribute.
regional team. All of us can contribute.
--David Rice
**Alexandra M. Nickliss, “Phoebe Apperson’s Hearst’s ‘Gospel of Wealth,’ 1883-1901,” Pacific Historical Review, 71 (2002).
Hearst Hall, commissioned by Phoebe Apperson Hearst for use as a women's gymnasium and student
center at the University of California, Berkeley
center at the University of California, Berkeley
