àPAR@ ` ╡TEXT ` ºHarkness, Anna M. Richardson1837╨1926philanthropistBorn on October 25, 1837, in Dalton, Ohio, Anna Richardson was married at sixteen, in February 1854, to Stephen V. Harkness, thirty-five, a businessman with whom she moved to Cleveland in 1866. In the 34 years of their marriage Stephen Harkness prospered greatly, having become an early and major investor in John D. Rockefeller╒s Standard Oil Company. At his death in 1888 Anna Harkness and her three children were left with over $150 million. In 1891 she moved to New York City, where her eldest son, Charles W. Harkness, established an office to manage the estate and she devoted herself to quiet philanthropy. Until 1916 she concentrated mainly on giving to churches and home and foreign missions. After Charles╒s death in 1916 the scope of her philanthropy broadened. In 1917 Anna Harkness gave $3 million to Yale to build what became Harkness Quadrangle, named in memory of her son. She became particularly interested in supporting medical research and education, but the increased complexity of dealing with large numbers of applications made it impossible for her to continue her practice of personally assessing each one. In 1918, therefore, she established the Commonwealth Fund with an endowment of $20 million and a board of directors with full discretion. The Commonwealth Fund, one of the major philanthropic foundations in the country and one of the very few established by a woman, gave its particular support over the years to medical schools, to the building of hospitals and clinics in rural areas, and to a program of fellowships to allow British students to study in the United States. Harkness╒s personal benefactions continued with another $3 million gift to Yale for faculty salaries in 1920, and in 1922 she gave a 22-acre site valued at $4 million to Columbia University in New York City for a new medical center for the College of Physicians and Surgeons and Presbyterian Hospital. She also gave liberally to the New York Public Library, the Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and other cultural and educational institutions. By the time of her death in New York City on March 27, 1926, Anna Harkness had managed her original $50 million share of the estate into $85 million and had given away over $40 million of it. Her will distributed the rest mainly to philanthropic institutions, including an additional $22 million to the Commonwealth Fund. «styl ` ! ¬ 5¬ ' 5¬ 7 !I C 5¬ D !I ï 5¬ î !I link `
