Ellen was born on October 18, 1836 in London, England, United Kingdom, the daughter of James Mogg Scripps and his second wife, Ellen Mary (Saunders) Scripps. When she was seven or eight, the family came to the United States and settled near Rushville, Illinois.
Ellen was graduated from Knox College in 1859.
For a time Ellen Browning taught school, but after the death of her father in 1873 she turned to newspaper work, in which her brother, James Edmund Scripps, and her half-brother, Edward Wyllis Scripps, were already engaged.
She went to Detroit, invested her savings in the Detroit Advertiser and Tribune, owned by her brother James, and worked as a proofreader and reporter. When the paper was destroyed by fire, she assisted in launching the Detroit Evening News.
In 1878, when her half-brother Edward founded the Cleveland Penny Press, she became a stockholder and a regular contributor. Later she invested in the Cincinnati Post and other journals in the Scripps-McRae League of Newspapers, which afterwards became the Scripps-Howard chain. More than once she came to Edward Scripps's assistance financially and saved the newspaper chain from failure.
About 1891 she settled in California, where she made her home with her brother Edward and his family at their ranch, "Miramar, " near San Diego. She invested heavily and profitably in San Diego real estate, and from the fortune she accumulated she gave generously to various enterprises and institutions. She converted the family farm at Rushville, Ill. , into the Scripps Memorial Park and later erected a community house upon the site of the farmhouse. To the city of San Diego she gave a community house and playground, and buildings and equipment for a zoological garden.
She provided a lodge and caretakers for the Torrey Pines Park in San Diego and bequeathed to the city as an addition to the park her land holdings of several hundred acres. She and her brother Edward were among the incorporators and were the chief financial supporters of the Marine Biological Association of San Diego, which afterwards, under the name of the Scripps Institution for Biological Research, was moved to La Jolla and transferred to the University of California, becoming in 1925 the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. In 1917 she became a member of the board of directors of the National Recreation Association. In her will she listed bequests and established trust funds totaling more than two million dollars.
She died in 1932.
Ellen Browning Scripps has been called one of the pioneers in modern American journalism, created America's largest chain of newspapers. She founded Scripps College at Claremont, established the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO), the oldest and largest center for ocean and earth science research. With her brother she also established at La Jolla the Scripps Memorial Hospital and funded the Scripps Research Clinic. Scripps was inducted into the Women's Hall of Fame in 2007 hosted by the California Museum.
Ellen Browning was known for her energy and industry. In spite of her many public benefactions, she succeeded in avoiding publicity and led a very quiet life.
Quotes from others about the person
The leading newspaper trade journal Editor & Publisher praised her contributions to American journalism: "Many women have contributed, directly and indirectly, to the development of the American press, but none more influentially and beneficently than Ellen Browning Scripps. "
Ellen never married.
