He Put the Funds in Our Foundation: How Robert Sterling Clark Got His Money

By Lisa Pilar Cowan
Vice President

Recently we have been starting our meetings with potential grantee partners by talking about where the Foundation’s money comes from. And a lot of it, you’ll be surprised to learn, has to do with…sewing machines!

Robert Sterling Clark launched our foundation with his wife Francine Clark. Sterling (as he was known) was the grandson of the lawyer to Isaac Singer, who invented the Singer sewing machine in 1851. It was a simpler, easier-to-use sewing machine than those that came before it, and it had tremendous impact for people sewing at home. But Singer violated a patent when he invented the machine, and he needed Edward Cabot Clark (Sterling’s grandfather) to save the business for him. Isaac Singer went on to have 24 children with five different women, and needed his lawyer in his life on a routine basis – both personally and professionally. 

Over time and in return for his services, Clark got half the Singer sewing machine business – and secured a fortune that lasted generations for his family. Sterling and Francine established the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation in 1952 (note, unfortunately, that her name got lost along the way…). There’s a lot more to be said about the Clark and Singer families – including stories involving travelling road shows and French showgirls – and if you want to read it, I suggest starting with The Clarks of Cooperstown, by Nicholas Fox Webber.

I tell this story to current and potential grantee partners for a few reasons – first, because it is kind of an intriguing and surprising story full of sex and money! Second, and more importantly, because it helps to put the foundation staff’s relationship to the money into perspective. There are no members of the Clark (or Singer) family on our staff or board. Rather, we are a group of people who somewhat randomly came to be in charge of giving this fortune away. I know nothing about the law or about sewing machines, and less than most of our grantees about their program work – and I want to be clear that I am neither giving away my own money, nor doing anyone any favors by doing my job. I hope that being clear about this helps to address some of the power dynamics that occur when people with resources meet people who need resources.

Much philanthropic wealth has come from unsavory sources. And on top of that, as our colleague Edgar Villanueva has written in his book Decolonizing Philanthropy: “The basis of traditional philanthropy is to preserve wealth, and that wealth is fundamentally money that’s been twice stolen, once through the exploitation of natural resources and cheap labor, and the second time, through tax evasion.” We are mindful of those colonial structures at play in much of traditional philanthropy, and are working to chip away at them both as an institution and within our own personal ways of doing business.

Here at RSCF, we think it is important to keep reminding ourselves that we are just a resting place for the money, as we transfer it from its source to those people and institutions who are working to build a more equitable New York City. We keep a physical reminder in the form of a Singer Sewing machine in the foyer of our office, and a smaller one on our bookshelves. And we are asking you to help us in this endeavor – by sending in photos of any Singer machines you may encounter in your travels. You can email them to us at rscf@rsclark.org, or tweet them @RSClarkFdn using the hashtag #spottedasinger.

As always, we’d love to get your thoughts on this – and now your photos, too!