12 Facts About Richard Gilder

Richard Gilder was a co-founder of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.

Richard Gilder was born in Manhattan on May 31,1932, a fifth-generation New Yorker of Bohemian Jewish descent.

Richard Gilder attended Northfield Mount Hermon School before enrolling in Yale College, graduating in 1954 with a BA in history.

Richard Gilder received a Doctor of Humane Letters in 2007 from Yale.

Richard Gilder provided $4 million, over half the necessary funding, in honor of his daughter, Virginia Gilder, a two-time Olympian, for the recently completed Gilder Boathouse for Yale rowers.

Richard Gilder was chairman of the executive committee at the New-York Historical Society and served on the executive board of the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture.

Richard Gilder worked together with George Soros in 1974 to revitalize Central Park.

Richard Gilder was a trustee of the Morgan Library and Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation.

Richard Gilder was chairman emeritus of the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think-tank, and the Club for Growth, a conservative political action committee, to which his ex-wife Virginia James continues to be a major donor.

Richard Gilder then set up a PhD program at the American Museum of Natural History in his own name, the Richard Gilder Graduate School at AMNH.

Richard Gilder had four children, all from his first marriage to Britt-Marie Lagerljung.

Richard Gilder died on May 12,2020, at his home in Charlottesville, Virginia, at the age of 87.