Social Activism
Peabody retired from business in 1906 to pursue a life of public service. Long interested in social causes, he supported such progressive ideas as the single tax as advocated by Henry George in his book Progress and Poverty, free trade, women's suffrage and government ownership of railroads. He was also active in the anti-war movement. He was also interested in education, particularly in the South and also particularly for African-Americans. He served as director of the General Education Board, treasurer of the Southern Education Board and on the boards of trustees of the American Church Institute for Negroes, Hampton in Virginia, Tuskegee in Alabama, the University of Georgia, and the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute.
Read more about this topic: George Foster Peabody
Famous quotes containing the word social:
“Can you conceive what it is to native-born American women citizens, accustomed to the advantages of our schools, our churches and the mingling of our social life, to ask over and over again for so simple a thing as that “we, the people,” should mean women as well as men; that our Constitution should mean exactly what it says?”
—Mary F. Eastman, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4 ch. 5, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)