Lewis B. Cullman ’37: Building a Life around Philanthropy and Service, and Inspiring Others to Do the Same

Lewis B. Cullman ’37, who held an early ambition to be a weatherman and worked for a time as an investment adviser, but who instead changed course to create a life devoted to social compassion and philanthropy, died on June 7, 2019.  He was 100.

Born in Manhattan on Jan. 26, 1919, Lewis Benjamin Cullman was the youngest of five children of Frances and Joseph F. Cullman Jr. Lewis came to Hotchkiss in 1933, following in the footsteps of his brothers – Joseph III ’31, W. Arthur ’33, and Edgar ’36.  He participated in athletics – including on a championship class football team, in class tennis, and on a 3rd class hockey team – presaging a lifetime love of sports, especially skiing.  He also was business manager of The Record and a member of the Railway Club and the Chess Team, the latter an activity that would feature later in one of his many inspired charities.

He graduated with a B.A. from Yale in 1941 and studied meteorology at New York University, earning an M.S. degree from NYU in 1942.  He became a meteorologist in the Navy during World War II and eventually ran his own weather-forecasting company.  But his fortune came from his ability to identify good ideas before they became big successes. In the early 1960s he launched the Incubation Fund, which invested in companies that were starting or just going public. In 1964, he and a colleague engineered the first leveraged buyout – with $1000 cash, they bought Orkin Exterminating Company for $62.4 million. Another deal involved the purchase of Keith Clark, a desk calendar company, which evolved into At-A-Glance ®, the largest manufacturer of calendars and appointment books in the U.S.

It was after Mr. Cullman sold that company that he embarked on the life’s work that would become so rewarding to him – philanthropy. As of 2010, he had given away nearly $500 million to organizations in the arts, sciences, and education.  Over many years, he made important gifts to many of the leading organizations in New York City as well as to lesser-known ones.  He and his wife, Dorothy Freedman Cullman, chose to support, almost exclusively, organizations with which they wanted to become involved.  After Dorothy’s death, he continued his philanthropy with his wife, Louise Hirschfeld Cullman.

Creative and thoughtful in his giving, Mr. Cullman evolved definite ideas on the purpose of foundations and the ways that donors can be most effective for the organizations they choose to support.  He described his philosophy of giving in a 2004 memoir, Can’t Take It with You – The Art of Making and Giving Money (John Wiley & Sons).  In the book, he urged wealthy people to give away most of their money during their lifetimes. He asked them to consider the extensive good to society that would result “if all those multibillionaires on the annual Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans decided they could rest easy with just, say, a billion each in the bank”? Billions of dollars “would be added to the philanthropic pool,” he wrote.

In the years before and after that book was published, he also wrote about philanthropy in national publications and journals. He was not a “passive donor,” choosing to serve as a board member of the organizations he supported and faithfully attending their meetings. In a June 10, 2004 article in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, he wrote, “When you really get involved with these organizations, when you’re on committees and on boards, right there in the trenches, you quickly see what the shortcomings are, and what the needs are.”

He preferred supporting small charities, but also made major donations for specific projects to several of New York’s largest and most recognized organizations. A $10-million donation established the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the Humanities and Social Sciences Library of the New York Public Library. The Cullmans also gave more than $30 million to the library’s research affiliates and devoted many hours of their time to the organization. Mr. Cullman was a major benefactor of these, among many organizations: the American Museum of Natural History, Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The New York Botanical Garden, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, The Joseph Papp Public Theater, American Academy in Rome, and Human Rights Watch.

One of his favorite projects involved the American Chess Foundation, which was founded in New York in the early 1950s to develop championship chess players for world competitions.  The group later changed its name to Chess-in-the-Schools, developing the idea to use chess as an educational and motivational tool for students at schools in poor neighborhoods. Mr. Cullman, who was a member of the Chess Club at Hotchkiss, immediately liked the idea and sought about raising the money to fulfill the mission of the new organization. When the group held its first fund-raising event in 1990, he got in touch with nearly everyone he knew, helping the group to bring in $250,000.  

Ultimately, the Cullmans donated more than $9 million to Chess-in-the-Schools, which he served as chairman emeritus.  The program has brought the benefits of the game to 450,000 children from elementary and middle schools in all five boroughs of New York.  Its College Bound program empowers youth to continue their education beyond high school by providing comprehensive college preparatory services and chess instruction in a safe and engaging environment. Mr. Cullman took pride in the fact that some of the students had matriculated in top colleges, including Vassar and Princeton.  

He was the founder and CEO of Cullman Ventures, Inc., a diversified company, and a supporter of The New America Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy institute that invests in new thinkers and new ideas in order to address the next generation of challenges facing the country. Mr. Cullman received numerous awards, including Guild Hall’s Academy of the Arts Lifetime Achievement Award and the New York City Mayor’s Award for Arts and Culture. In November 2011, the Cullmans were honored as “Living Landmarks” by the New York Landmarks Conservancy – Lewis as a philanthropist and Louise as a theatre historian.

In addition to his wife, Louise, Mr. Cullman is survived by a son, Duncan, from his first marriage to Thais MacBride; two stepsons, Jonathan and Antony Kerz; and eight grandchildren. His Hotchkiss relatives, in addition to his deceased siblings, include: nephews Edgar M. Cullman ’64 and Joseph A. Solomon ’82, great-nephews Jeffrey D. Treisman ’82 and David M. Danziger ’84, and cousins Hugh Cullman ’04 and Cameron A. Cullman ’08.

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