# Mellon Bank **Mellon Bank** was the founding commercial vehicle of the [[Scaife-Mellon Family]] and one of the most consequential financial institutions in American history. It bankrolled the industrialization of western Pennsylvania, anchored a fortune that later seeded the modern [[Conservative Movement]]'s donor infrastructure, and merged into the entity now known as BNY Mellon — one of the world's largest custodian banks. ## Origins Judge [[Thomas Mellon]] — an Irish-born, self-made jurist who had accumulated real-estate wealth on the bench — opened **T. Mellon & Sons** in Pittsburgh in January 1870, capitalizing on the city's position as the furnace of the [[Gilded Age]] industrial boom. The bank was a family enterprise from day one: Thomas installed his sons as officers and trained them in the credit-and-collateral discipline that would define the institution's lending philosophy. His son [[Andrew Mellon]] joined in 1874 and proved so capable that Thomas transferred full ownership to him in 1882. Under Andrew's leadership the bank became a venture lender to the industries transforming Pittsburgh — steel, aluminum, coal, and oil. ## Industrial Empire The Mellons did not merely lend to industry; they built it. Through the bank's financing and direct equity stakes, the family assembled controlling interests in [[Gulf Oil]], [[Alcoa]] (originally the Pittsburgh Reduction Company), Koppers Company, and Carborundum. By the early twentieth century the Mellon financial network rivaled J.P. Morgan's in scale, though it operated from Pittsburgh rather than Wall Street. In 1902 the institution was rechartered as **Mellon National Bank**, signaling its ambitions beyond the regional market. ## Andrew Mellon and the Treasury [[Andrew Mellon]] served as Secretary of the [[Department of the Treasury]] under three consecutive presidents — Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover (1921-1932). He championed [[Supply-Side Economics]] before the term existed, slashing top income-tax rates from 73% to 24% and arguing that lower rates would stimulate growth and ultimately increase revenue. His "Mellon Plan" is a direct ancestor of the [[Trickle-Down Economics]] framework that remains a pillar of conservative fiscal policy. He was eventually forced out amid the [[Great Depression]], and Congress passed legislation prohibiting any future Treasury secretary from serving more than ten years. ## Mid-Century Consolidation After Andrew Mellon's death in 1937, his brother Richard B. Mellon and later generations kept the bank at the center of Pittsburgh's corporate ecosystem. The bank merged with Girard Trust in 1983 and became Mellon Bank Corporation, expanding into trust management, mutual funds, and institutional custody services. By the 1990s, it had shed most direct industrial holdings and repositioned as an asset-management and custody powerhouse. In 1999 it rebranded as **Mellon Financial Corporation**. ## The BNY Mellon Merger On December 4, 2006, Mellon Financial announced a merger with the Bank of New York in a deal valued at approximately $16.5 billion. The combined entity — **The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (BNY Mellon)** — launched on July 2, 2007, creating the world's largest securities-servicing firm with over $20 trillion in assets under custody. The merger paired Mellon's asset-management strength with the Bank of New York's transaction-processing infrastructure. The [[Scaife-Mellon Family]] no longer controls the institution, but the Mellon name persists in its corporate identity and in the philanthropic foundations the fortune endowed. In 2025 the company rebranded as simply **BNY**, though the Mellon legacy remains embedded in its Pittsburgh operations and its custodian-bank DNA. ## The Donor Legacy The political significance of Mellon Bank lies less in the institution itself than in the wealth it generated. That wealth flowed into a constellation of foundations — the [[Sarah Scaife Foundation]], the Allegheny Foundation, the Carthage Foundation — that [[Richard Mellon Scaife]] weaponized as instruments of conservative movement-building from the 1960s onward. Scaife's philanthropy helped capitalize the [[Heritage Foundation]], underwrote the "Arkansas Project" opposition-research campaign against Bill Clinton, and formed part of the broader [[Dark Money]] donor infrastructure that also includes the [[Koch Network]]. Andrew Mellon's own philanthropic legacy took a different form — he donated his art collection and funded the construction of the National Gallery of Art in Washington — but the family's political giving, channeled primarily through the Scaife branch, is what makes the Mellon fortune a structural pillar of the American right. The arc from a Pittsburgh bank vault to the modern conservative policy apparatus is one of the KB's core through-lines. ## Key Dates - **1869** — [[Thomas Mellon]] founds T. Mellon & Sons in Pittsburgh - **1882** — [[Andrew Mellon]] takes full ownership - **1902** — Rechartered as Mellon National Bank - **1921-1932** — Andrew Mellon serves as Secretary of the [[Department of the Treasury]] - **1983** — Merger with Girard Trust forms Mellon Bank Corporation - **1999** — Rebranded as Mellon Financial Corporation - **2007** — Merged with the Bank of New York to form BNY Mellon ## See Also - [[Thomas Mellon]] - [[Andrew Mellon]] - [[Scaife-Mellon Family]] - [[Richard Mellon Scaife]] - [[Sarah Scaife Foundation]] - [[Gulf Oil]] - [[Alcoa]]