Catherine Terese MacArthur (née Hyland; November 23, 1908 – December 15, 1981) was an American philanthropist. With the estate of her husband, businessman and philanthropist

John D. MacArthur John Donald MacArthur (March 6, 1897 – January 6, 1978) was an American insurance magnate, real estate investor and philanthropist who established the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, benefactor in the MacArthur Fellowships. ...

, she co-founded the

MacArthur Foundation The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is a private foundation that makes grants and impact investments to support non-profit organizations in approximately 50 countries around the world. It has an endowment of $7.0 billion and p ...

, one of the 10 largest philanthropic foundations in the United States.

Life

Born Catherine Terese Hyland in 1908, MacArthur was one of nine children of Irish immigrants on

Chicago's South Side The South Side is an area of Chicago, Illinois, U.S. It lies south of the city's Loop area in the downtown. Geographically, it is the largest of the three sides of the city that radiate from downtown, with the other two being the north and we ...

.About John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur
/ref> Her father owned and operated several retail stores, was active in Democratic politics in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, and held several state and local governmental positions. In 1938 she married John D. MacArthur. In 1935, MacArthur purchased

Bankers Life and Casualty Bankers Life is the primary subsidiary of CNO Financial Group, Inc. (itself formerly Conseco, Inc until 2010). The company was established in 1879 in Chicago, Illinois. CNO is a Fortune 1000 company (rank of 548 in 2015) whose subsidiaries provid ...

for $2,500 and used mass marketing techniques to sell insurance by mail. Banker's Life was the basis of John's phenomenal success in real estate and insurance. Official Banker's Life press releases verify that Catherine was intimately involved in the business's success. She appears throughout the records under her maiden name, C.T. Hyland, as corporate secretary, director, or both.Learning to Give - John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
In 1963, John purchased the Colonnades Hotel in Palm Beach Shores on

Singer Island Singer Island is a peninsula on the Atlantic coast of Palm Beach County, Florida, in the South Florida metropolitan area. Most of it is in the city of Riviera Beach, but the town of Palm Beach Shores occupies its southern tip. Its latitude of ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

. Catherine lived with her husband in a modest apartment overlooking the parking lot, while John conducted his business from a corner table in the hotel's coffee shop.Lowery, Fred
"Celebrity Days Remembered As Colonnades Hotel Is Razed"
'' South Florida Sun-Sentinel'', February 17, 1990 When John D. MacArthur died on January 6, 1978, he was worth over $1 billion and reportedly one of the three wealthiest men in the United States.

Death

References

External links

Biography at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Macarthur, Catherine T. 1908 births 1981 deaths American businesspeople in insurance American people of Irish descent Philanthropists from Illinois People from Chicago People from Palm Beach County, Florida 20th-century American businesspeople 20th-century American philanthropists