Jane Stanford - Stanford University

Stanford University

After the death of their only son Leland Stanford, Jr., in 1884 while on a trip in Italy, the elder Leland turned to his wife and said "The children of California shall be our children." They then founded Leland Stanford Junior University in their son's honor. The university opened in 1891. After Leland's death on June 21, 1893, Jane in effect took control of the university. The university suffered severe financial hardship because of Leland's death, and the trustees advocated a temporary closure of the university until tax and legal issues could be resolved, but she insisted it remain in operation. For the next several years she ran the university as if it was her own household, paying salaries out of her personal resources and pawning her jewels to maintain the university's building program.

It was at her direction that Stanford University gained an early focus on the arts. She also advocated the admission of women; the university had been coeducational since its founding. She figured prominently in the issue of academic freedom when she sought and ultimately succeeded in having Stanford University economist Edward A. Ross fired for making speeches favoring Democrat William Jennings Bryan and favoring racism against Chinese American "coolies", outlining eugenics policies directed against Chinese people and other racial groups, and for his collectivist economic teachings. This case resulted in the American Association of University Professors' "Report on Academic Freedom and Tenure" of 1915, by Arthur Oncken Lovejoy and Edwin R. A. Seligman, and in the AAUP 1915 Declaration of Principles.

She traveled to London during 1897, the year of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, hoping to find a buyer for her rubies and other jewels to raise funds for the university; however, she was not able to sell them at that time. In 1905 she directed the university trustees that after her death, her jewels should be sold and the funds used as a permanent endowment "to be used exclusively for the purchase of books and other publications." The board of trustees confirmed this arrangement, and the Jewel Fund continues to add to the university's library collections. The endowment, originally $500,000, is now worth about $20 million. Items purchased through the Jewel Fund display a distinctive bookplate which shows a romanticized Jane Stanford offering her jewels to Athena, the goddess of wisdom. Since 2007, benefactors who provide endowments for library acquisitions are referred to as members of the Jewel Society.