Valentine Everit Macy was an American capitalist, philanthropist, and public official. He was a commissioner of the Department of Charities and Corrections, Commissioner of Public Welfare, and Commissioner of Parks in Westchester County, New York.
Background
Valentine Everit Macy, Sr. was born on March 23, 1871, in New York City. He was a son of Josiah and Caroline (Everit) Macy. The progenitor of the family in America was Thomas Macy (or Macie), whose settlement on Nantucket Island is commemorated in Whittier's ballad "The Exiles. "
Most of the Nantucket Macys and their descendants were Friends. Josiah, an official of the Standard Oil Company, had inherited a fortune, the foundation of which had been laid by a group of Nantucket whalers.
His grandfather Josiah and his father William H. had established in 1828 the firm of Josiah Macy & Son, New York. When Josiah, Jr. , died in 1876, he left a large estate to which the son succeeded on reaching his majority.
Education
Macy's education proceeded chiefly under private tutors at home and abroad. At seventeen, he was interested in teaching wood-carving to city boys.
Later, he entered the Columbia University College of Architecture and received the degree of Ph. B. in 1893, but was never active professionally.
Career
For many years, Macy was chiefly occupied with the care of his estate, giving much time, however, to public causes, notably the Teachers College of Columbia University, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the National Child Labor Committee. Macy established a residence at Scarboro, Westchester County.
In the fall of 1913, a county superintendent of the poor was to be elected and Macy's friends succeeded in placing his name on the Democratic and Progressive tickets. Though strongly opposed by the old-line Republican leaders, he was elected. Upon taking charge of the poor farm and almshouse, he at once installed an accounting and purchasing system that within two years reduced the per capita cost of caring for inmates more than twenty per cent, while at the same time he introduced an improved diet that lowered the number of deaths from diabetes and nephritis sixty per cent.
For the first time, able-bodied adult inmates were put to work. Macy's chief concern, however, was for the dependent children. He expanded the system under which they were placed in homes throughout the county, and employed a staff of trained social workers in connection therewith.
Since public funds were not available at first, he paid the salaries of these workers out of his own pocket for several years, the entire charge being eventually assumed by the county when the value of the service had been fully demonstrated.
After three years of his administration Macy, now a candidate of both Democrats and Republicans, was reelected by a virtually unanimous vote. The title of his office was changed to commissioner of charities and corrections, and later to commissioner of public welfare. The county hospital was separated from the almshouse and a desirable site was acquired for a modern hospital building, to be known as Grasslands; for the purposes of the department of child welfare eight districts were erected in the county; and a county penitentiary was planned for correctional work with first offenders.
The World War, during which Macy served as head of the labor-adjustment commission for the United States Shipping Board, delayed the completion of many of his plans for the expansion of county welfare work, but in 1920 the hospital was opened and within three years was so overcrowded that in 1923 its capacity had to be increased from 350 to 500 beds.
When Macy resigned the commissionership, after more than ten years of service, he had clearly shown how a county government may cooperate with enlightened private effort in attacking the causes of dependency. A paper read by him in 1921, before the Congress of the American Prison Association was subsequently published under the title, Self-Government on a County Prison Farm (1922).
Macy died on March 21, 1930, of bronchial pneumonia near Phoenix, Arizona.
Achievements
Macy served as president of the National Civic Federation. His home at Tannersville, New York, known as Hathaway, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.
Personality
Macy's wife, was actively interested in the Girl Scouts, and after her death in 1925, Macy made generous gifts to that organization as memorials to her.
As president of the Westchester County park commission, Valentine devoted much time in the last four years of his life to the beautification of the county park system, which was placed upon a practically self-supporting basis.
Connections
Macy married Edith W. Carpenter on February 18, 1896. They had two sons and a daughter.
