Cordelia Scaife May (September 24, 1928 – January 26, 2005) was a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-area political donor and philanthropist. An heiress to the Mellon-Scaife family fortune, she was one of the wealthiest women in the United States. 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. According to The New York Times, "she bankrolled the founding and operation of the nation’s three largest restrictionist groups—the Federation for American Immigration Reform, NumbersUSA and the Center for Immigration Studies," and she left the bulk of her assets to the Colcom Foundation, whose major activity has been the sponsorship of immigration restriction. May lived a reclusive life, especially after the death of her second husband in 1974. Biography Early life and education On September 24, 1928, May was born as Cordelia Mellon Scaife in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. May's father was Alan Magee Scaife and her mother was Sarah Cordelia Mellon Scaife. May's maternal grandfather was Richard B. Mellon. May is the grand-niece of Andrew W. Mellon. May and her brother Richard Mellon Scaife grew up at the family estate in Ligonier, Pennsylvania. May attended Foxcroft School, a boarding school for girls. 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. May attended Carnegie Institute of Technology, now known as Carnegie Mellon University, and the University of Pittsburgh briefly, but left school to get married. Personal life On June 30, 1949, Cordelia Scaife married Herbert A. May Jr. The marriage lasted only a few months; they soon divorced. After May's divorce, she resumed a childhood friendship with Robert Duggan. However, they were unable to be married for a long period of time, as both their families disapproved. To the wealthy and Protestant Mellons, Duggan was a lower-class Catholic beneath the family's stature; to Duggan's family, May was a divorcee ineligible for a Catholicism-sanctioned marriage. On August 29, 1973, Duggan and May secretly civilly married in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. Duggan was by then the Allegheny County District Attorney of Pennsylvania. The marriage was kept secret at first, but eventually leaked to the press. Duggan was under federal investigation by United States Attorney Dick Thornburgh for allegations of racketeering and corruption. On March 5, 1974, he was found