As generous patronesses of education, science and art many women have set themselves lasting monuments.
Catherine L. Wolfe donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York not only her magnificent collection of paintings, but likewise a fund of $200,000 for its preservation and increase. A million dollars was also bequeathed by her to several educational institutions founded by her father and herself. She is also known as the founder of the New York Home for Incurables.
Mary Tileston Hemenway supported the so-called Hemenway Expeditions for the archæological exploration of certain regions of Arizona and New Mexico.
Jane Lathrop Stanford, wife of Leland Stanford, railway constructor, and U. S. Senator from California, founded in memory of her son the “Leland Stanford Jr. University” at Palo Alto, near San Francisco. At her own expense Mrs. Stanford established a museum, connected with the university, containing objects of art, and many things she had collected during her extensive travels. At her death the entire estate of the Stanfords, amounting to about $50,000,000, was left to endow this great university. Her San Francisco home, on Nob Hill, became an art gallery and museum.
Phœbe Hearst, wife of George Hearst, and mother of William Randolph Hearst, made large donations to the University of California. These included $800,000 for the erection and equipment of the Hearst Memorial Mining Building. She also made provision for twenty scholarships for women, and founded a number of free libraries in mining towns with which her husband had been associated. Mrs. Hearst was also actively interested in every kind of organization for the welfare of women. Furthermore she established and maintained two kindergarten schools in San Francisco, and three in Washington, one of which is for colored children. Her most important gift to the District of Columbia was the National Cathedral School for Girls, erected on a beautiful site on the outskirts of the city.
Margaret Olivia Sage, the widow of Russell Sage, donated between seventy-five and eighty million dollars for charitable and educational purposes. With ten millions she established in 1907 the “Sage Foundation for Social Betterment.” Its purpose is the improvement of social and living conditions in the United States. It does not attempt to relieve individual or family need, but tries to seek out and eliminate causes of this evil. It furthers education that more directly affects social and living conditions, such as industrial education, education in household arts, and the training of social workers. In the pursuit of these aims the Sage Foundation subsidized worthy activities and organizations; it has established investigational and propagandist departments of its own; invested its funds in activities with a social purpose; and published extensively books and pamphlets on social subjects. Since the work of the Russell Sage Foundation aids social advance for people of every nation, Mrs. Sage became one of the benefactors not only of this country, but of the world.
Among the many donations Mrs. Sage made to other institutions, were $600,000 to the Troy Female Seminary, which was one of the first schools in America for the higher education of girls; $1,600,000 to the Woman’s Hospital of New York; $1,600,000 to the Children’s Aid Society; $1,600,000 to the Metropolitan Museum of Art; $1,600,000 to the American Museum of Natural History; and $1,600,000 to Syracuse University.
The list here given mentions only a few of the innumerable philanthropic works of American women. Similar lists could be made for all other countries, but the material has never been properly collected. Besides, by far the greatest number of such benevolent acts have been performed without public knowledge. But wherever we go, we find women active, helpful, and persevering, always rejoicing in the accomplishment of good.
