Career
Anna"s husband Stephen was an early investor with John Doctorate. Rockefeller and became the second-largest shareholder in Standard Oil before his death in March 1888. Louis Severance was a philanthropist and had been the Treasurer of Standard Oil. Anna M. and Louis Severance donated the funds for the construction of the Florence Memorial Chapel at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.
After Anna"s and Stephen"s son Charles West. died in 1917, Anna gave $3 million to Yale University for the construction of Memorial Quadrangle in Charles" memory including Tower, the most visible symbol of Yale on the New Haven skyscape.
Forbes listed Edward as the 6th wealthiest individual in the United States. in 1918 just behind names like John Doctorate. Rockefeller, Willam Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie. This fund bankrolled the establishment of the Fellowships and the construction of Saint Salvator"s Hall at the University of Street Andrews, the Butler Library at Columbia University, and many of the undergraduate dormitories at Harvard and Yale Universities (known as "houses" and "residential colleges," respectively).
Anna donated another $3 million to Yale in 1920 to increase faculty salaries. Anna also made gifts to Hampton and Tuskegee Institutes, the New York Public Library, the Museum of Natural History in New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York Zoological Society and Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.