John Kluge

Kluge was born in 1914 to a Presbyterian family in Chemnitz, Germany, and emigrated to the United States in 1922. Kluge went to Wayne State University for two years and earned his B.A. degree in economics from Columbia University in 1937. He was of Scots-Irish, English, and German heritage.

During World War II, Kluge served at the secret P.O. Box 1142 interrogation facility outside of Washington, D.C.

Columbia University

Kluge gave over $510 million to Columbia University. Acknowledging the scholarship funds that enabled him to attend, Kluge gave more than $110 million to Columbia University between 1987 and 1993, primarily to endow financial aid for undergraduates from underprivileged backgrounds. His donations also help many of these students pursue PhDs after they graduate by financing their doctoral studies. On April 11, 2007, Columbia University's President Lee C. Bollinger announced a $400 million pledge from Kluge, which the university was to receive upon the donor's death. The donation marks the fourth largest gift to an institution of higher learning in America, all designated for financial aid. This marks the largest pledge ever devoted exclusively to student aid to any single institution of higher education in the United States.

Kluge was a collector of contemporary Indigenous Australian art, and owned works by prominent artists including Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri.

In 1983, Kluge received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.

Kluge was married four times. His first wife was Theodora Thomson Townsend, his second was Yolanda Galardo Zucco, his third was Patricia Maureen Rose, and his fourth was Maria Tussi Kuttner. Patricia Kluge kept their Albemarle estate in the 1990 divorce settlement converting it into an award-winning vineyard and winery which opened in 1999. She took out $65 million in loans and mortgaged the mansion to finance production expansion and a related real-estate venture, but defaulted and declared bankruptcy in 2011.

Kluge had three children, Joseph (whom he adopted), Samantha (with Zucco) and John Jr. (adopted, with Rose). He also had three step children who remained a part of his life until his death: Diane, Jeannette Brophy and Peter Lockwood Townsend. He had homes in New Rochelle, New York, Virginia and Palm Beach, Florida with his fourth wife, Maria Tussi Kluge, at the time of his death in 2010.

John W. Kluge Center

In celebration of the 200th Anniversary of the Library of Congress, Kluge donated an unprecedented $60 million to create the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress. It was created as an academic center where accomplished senior scholars and junior post-doctoral fellows might gather to make use of the Library's incomparable collections and to interact with members of the United States Congress. In addition, his gift would establish a $1 million prize to be given in recognition of a lifetime of achievement in the human sciences, comparable to the Nobel Prize in literature and economics. The Kluge Prize would honor lifetime intellectual achievement in the same way as the Kennedy Center Honors recognize lifetime achievement in the performing arts.

Political contributions

Through the 1980s he gave donations to both Republican and Democratic presidential candidates and to Senate candidates in various states. In Virginia he mainly gave to Democrats. In 1986, he gave $75,000 to the state Democratic Leadership Council, and in 1989 he donated $100,000 to gubernatorial candidate L. Douglas Wilder.