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| Building Your Family's 100 Year Plan: The Series |
100 Year Plan Part III: The Good We Do
Daniel Gross
02/02/2004
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The fifth generation carries on the tradition of the family business and family philanthropy. Robert Haas, the son of Walter Jr. and a veteran of the Peace Corps, served as CEO of Levi Strauss from 1984 to 1999 and is now the chairman, as well as a trustee of his parents’ foundation.
In the past decade, the Levi’s brand has suffered in the highly competitive fashion marketplace. Although the brand may no longer be what it once was, when it comes to philanthropy—and in marrying a family’s commitment to give to a company’s ability to assist—the Levi Strauss tradition has not only held up, but grown remarkably in strength.
An Image Redeemed: The
Astors
The Astors, another storied American business family with roots in Germany, took a few generations to get the hang of philanthropy. But once they came around—by focusing resources on the city that had been the source of their wealth—they made up for lost time.
John Jacob Astor, born in the German town of Waldorf in 1763, came to Amer-ica in 1783. After selling musical instruments, he entered into fur trading, shipped goods to and from China, and, ultimately, took up that most lucrative of enterprises, the acquisition of Manhattan real estate. In the last three decades of his life, he invested $1.25 million in New York property—an enormous sum for that period. "Could I begin life again, knowing what I now know, and had money to invest, I would buy every foot of land on the island of Manhattan," he once said. Instead, he satisfied himself with a substantial percentage.
In the end, John Jacob Astor was much better at getting than giving. The public was shocked to learn that in 1848, when he died, the richest man in America left only about $500,000 to charity. Most of this went to establish a library, to be built on land that he donated. With grudging support from the next two generations, the Astor Library—the only major reference library in New York—grew, providing the basis for what is now the mammoth New York Public Library.
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