The Joseph H. Hazen Foundation has informed the Society that it will award the Society a grant of $100,000, to be paid in equal installments over a period of four years and to be matched by the Society. The money, which will be contributed to the Societys endowment, is intended to help support the Society's educational efforts and public outreach programs. The Society will work through its Committee on Education, and other HSS committees as well, to develop programs to be supported by the money.

Joseph Hazen (1898-1994) was a longtime supporter of the History of Science Society. Over the past two decades, he provided generous support for a variety of activities associated with the Committee on Education. In 1988, he made a substantial contribution to the Society to endow the annual HSS Distinguished Lecture. His support was always steady, but he preferred not to be identified closely with his benefactions. Gerald Holton, Michael Sokal, and I had the pleasure of communicating with him and hearing of his enthusiastic interest in the history of science.

It was Professor Holton, past president of the Society, who introduced Mr. Hazen to the Society. Holton learned of Mr. Hazen's interest in Albert Einstein through the late Professor Heinz Pagels, who was then serving as the executive director of the New York Academy of Sciences, an organization to which both Mr. Hazen and Professor Holton belonged. Thus began a long and close collaboration and friendship, leading eventually to Mr. Hazen's many contributions to the Society.

Mr. Hazen had a long and distinguished career as a lawyer, film producer, art collector, and philanthropist. He was a vice president and director of Warner Brothers, serving as the company's lawyer for seventeen years, writing the contract that resulted in The Jazz Singer, the first motion picture with sound. He left Warner Brothers in 1944 to form Hal Wallis Productions, later Wallis-Hazen Productions. Together, Mr. Hazen and Mr. Wallis produced over 60 movies including such classics as Sorry, Wrong Number (1948), Come Back, Little Sheba (1952), King Creole (1958), Barefoot in the Park (1967), True Grit (1969), and Anne of the Thousand Days (1969). Seventeen of his films were nominated for Academy Awards and three films (Come Back, Little Sheba, The Rose Tattoo, and True Grit) garnered the prize. He was also responsible for signing Elvis Presley, Shirley MacLaine, Burt Lancaster, and Shirley Booth to long-term movie contracts; he assisted Mr. Wallis in developing the infamous comedy team of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.

After retiring from the movie business, Mr. Hazen spent the last thirty years of his life managing the family trust and its charitable activities, as well as building his own substantial art collection (his paintings included works of all the important painters of the twentieth century; in 1995, the family sold his painting, Thicket by Van Gogh, for $27 million). Most of his charitable contributions were to cultural, medical, and educational institutions in the United States and Israel.

Mr. Hazen was married to Lita Annenberg Hazen, who also was substantially involved in philanthropic activities. She died in October 1995, less than one year after Mr. Hazen's de ath. The Hazens had one daughter, Cynthia Hazen Polsky, who has continued her parents philanthropic efforts by serving as president of the Joseph H. Hazen Foundation. The present gift from the Foundation was the result of our continuing relationship with Cynthia Hazen Polsky. It was her idea to remember her father by a generous donation to the History of Science Society. The negotiations between the Foundation and the Society were completed successfully on 24 February 1997.

This page last modified: 4 December, 2001