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NOVEMBER 2004

City Alums Reflect on Legacy of Alexander Hamilton
By Dorothy Davis

The subject of the New-York Historical Society’s major exhibit, “Alexander Hamilton: The Man Who Made Modern America,” on view until February 28, 2005, was a gifted child of another age, who overcame a devastating childhood to achieve greatness.

Four former gifted children of our age, prominent alumni of The City University of New York, who also overcame challenging childhoods to achieve success, took part in a lively discussion, “Hamilton’s Innovations: Today’s Success Stories,” at the Society the other evening.

Hamilton’s financial and political policies that made America the democratic world power it is today and enabled the participants’ successes in finance, publishing and education underpinned their stories. They talked of their experiences growing up in immigrant communities, as high-achieving students and professionals, as contributors to our society.

“My college education opened up the world to me,” said Dr. Charlotte Frank, a Senior Vice President, The McGraw Hill Companies, and the former Executive Director of the Division of Curriculum and Instruction for the New York City Board of Education as well as a former NYS Regent. “Suddenly I was out of the Bronx, onto this big campus. Some teachers took me to museums. I was introduced to the city. As part of being a business major I went down to Wall Street.”

“My interests at City College were young women and hopefully working on Wall Street,” said Roger Hertog, Director and Vice Chairman, Alliance Capital Management. “But I had a difficult professor who tried to make you think, and did it in a non-political environment. He taught a course on the Federalist Papers and the Greeks. Reading the Federalist Papers is not easy to begin with, not to mention thinking about them in relation to Aristotle and Socrates. This teacher, whatever you said, he’d argue with you. When the whole class agreed on something he’d argue with it.”

“I guess my experience was less intellectual than others,” said Robert Friedman, Partner, Sage Capital Management LLC and, until his retirement, a partner at Goldman Sachs. “I went to engineering school at a time described as the Sputnik Era. If you were any good at math and science you were moved into engineering. [When our class met for the first time] we were told, ‘Look to your left and look to your right, in four years two of you are not going to be here.’ We had slide rules, closeted ourselves, did engineering and math problems for five full years. I went to business school, Baruch College, at night and it was the same kind of environment.”

These experiences are reminiscent of Hamilton’s. He attended King’s College (now Columbia University) as a young immigrant from the Caribbean, and a new world opened up to him in New York City, a major commercial center. He was a principal author of the Federalist Papers, and a talented debater, and he also had a marked interest in the ladies. He came to manhood at a time of great challenge in our country, and he worked hard to achieve success.

All of the panelists said that their admiration of Hamilton had grown over time.

As Dr. Frank observed, “I didn’t know anything about Alexander Hamilton when I was in college, other than that he was on the ten dollar bill. When I got older I appreciated him. He was strongly opposed to slavery. He believed in a system of free common schools where all children would be educated.”#

For more information: www.nyhistory.org

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