Cordelia Scaife May (September 24, 1928 – January 26, 2005) was a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-area political donor and philanthropist.
Her philanthropy and political causes included environmentalism, birth control and family planning; overpopulation control measures, making English the official language of the United States, and strict immigration restrictions to the United States.
[4] May and her brother Richard Mellon Scaife grew up at the family estate in Ligonier, Pennsylvania.
According to May, her childhood was largely unhappy; her "eccentric" mother Sarah was "...just a gutter drunk..." who let nannies do the work in raising her.
[1] Duggan was under federal investigation by United States Attorney Dick Thornburgh for allegations of racketeering and corruption.
On March 5, 1974, he was found dead of gunshot wounds hours before being indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of income tax evasion.
[1] On January 26, 2005, May died at her home, Cold Comfort Farm, in Ligonier Township, Pennsylvania at age 76, and was cremated.
[5] May made charitable donations to land conservation, watershed protection, environmental education, and population causes.
She argued the United States was "being invaded on all fronts" by immigrants who "breed like hamsters" and exhaust America's resources.
[15] The Los Angeles Times reported that Scaife May was the single largest donor to anti-immigrant causes and "An ardent environmentalist more comfortable with books and birds than with high-society galas, May believed nature was under siege from runaway population growth.
"[16] The Times also wrote that May donated $200,000 to conservative columnist Samuel T. Francis, who called for a halt to all immigration and who opposes the mixing of the races.
[1] She also funded the republication and distribution of the dystopian novel The Camp of the Saints in 1983, a novel popular among the far right and widely described as racist by critics; the Southern Poverty Law Center has compared it to The Turner Diaries.