Andrew Mellon

Andrew Mellon (1855-1937), American financier, industrialist, and statesman. Andrew William Mellon was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and educated at Western University of Pennsylvania (now named the University of Pittsburgh). He started his career in the banking firm of Thomas Mellon and Sons of Pittsburgh, later becoming partner and president of the firm that developed into the Mellon National Bank, of which he became president in 1902. He was active in many industries, including coal, iron, and oil, and was director of several financial and industrial corporations. He founded the town of Donora, Pennsylvania, where he established a large steel plant. Actively engaged in many philanthropies, he aided in establishing the Mellon Institute in Pittsburgh. He was secretary of the treasury under three successive presidents, Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover. Among his chief accomplishments in national financial policies were the refunding of European debts and reduction of the public debt in America. He was U.S. ambassador to Britain from 1932 to 1933.

Mellon left his extensive art collection and a gallery building in Washington, D.C., to the American people. By joint resolution, Congress, in accepting the gift, named the gallery the National Gallery of Art.