Leland Stanford was an American industrialist, businessman, and politician. Stanford was one of the founders of the Central Pacific and Southern Pacific railroads and served as California's 8th governor and then the United States senator. He is also known as the founder of one of the world’s most highly regarded universities, he established the Leland Stanford, Jr. University in Palo Alto, better known as simply Stanford University.
Background
Leland Stanford was born on March 9, 1824, into a well-off farming family in Watervliet (now the Town of Colonie), New York, the United States, to Josiah and Elizabeth (Phillips) Stanford. Stanford's father was a prosperous farmer who also worked as a contractor in the building of bridges, roads, and railroads. The family could trace its American roots back to Thomas Stanford (or Staniforth), who lived in Concord, Massachusetts, in 1644.
Originally his name was Amasa Leland, but he never used the full form after he was mature. Leland Stanford was the fourth son of a family of seven sons and one daughter. The daughter died in infancy, and one son in early life. The boys helped their father upon the farm, and perhaps also with various contracts for road and bridge construction in which he was interested.
Education
Stanford's early education was typical of the period, a combination of formal schooling and home tutoring. Leland received a formal education until the age of 12, had 3 years of tutoring at home, and then returned to school. He began to study law at the age of 20 and in 1845. He studied at the Cazenovia Seminary in New York.
In 1845 Stanford entered the law office of Wheaton, Doolittle & Hadley in Albany, New York. He was admitted to the New York Bar in 1847, but he moved to Port Huron, Wisconsin, the next year to open his own law office. Stanford practiced law in Wisconsin, from 1848 to 1852, before moving to Sacramento, California, when his law office burned down. There he achieved much success in retailing mining supplies and general merchandise.
His brothers helped him establish a mining store in Cold Springs, which proved unsuccessful. He then opened a general store in Michigan Bluff. Finally, in 1856 he moved to Sacramento and became a partner in his brothers' business. He also became active in local politics. A Republican, he served as governor of California from 1862 to 1863.
In 1861 Stanford, together with Mark Hopkins, Collis P. Huntington, and Charles Crocker, formed the Central Pacific Railroad with Stanford as president. Stanford handled the legal and governmental affairs of the railroad. When President Lincoln signed an act pledging federal support for a transcontinental railroad, it was the Central Pacific Railroad that was assigned to construct the portion from Sacramento east to meet the Union Pacific Railroad, which was building the portion west from Omaha, Nebraska.
Stanford persuaded the California legislature to give more than $750,000 to the cash-starved Central Pacific to allow it to build part of the first transcontinental railroad. For its part, the Central Pacific would get five miles of land on either side of the track it laid and up to $48,000 per mile. When the transcontinental was completed in 1869, Stanford and his associates were some $54 million richer.
The Big Four, as Stanford and his associates, were known, went on to pursue other interests in rail and water transportation. They formed the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1870 to purchase and build railroad lines south from San Francisco. The company later completed a second transcontinental railroad from California to New Orleans. The Big Four eventually established a virtual monopoly over transportation in California, and in 1885 they formed the Southern Pacific Corporation as a holding company for their interests. Stanford served as its president from 1885 to 1890.
With renewed political ambitions, Stanford ran for the United States Senate in 1885 and defeated A.A. Sargent, who was a personal friend of one of the Big Four, Collis P. Huntington. Huntington and Stanford disagreed over Stanford's political career, and in 1890 Huntington managed to have Stanford replaced as president of Southern Pacific. Stanford was reelected to a second term in the United States Senate, where he served until his death in 1893 at the age of 69.
Stanford began devoting less time to his railroad interests around 1870 when his son was born. After 1870 Stanford became less involved in the daily activities of the railroad company and he retreated to his ranch in Palo Alto, California. He spent more time on the education of his son. He and his wife took Leland, Jr. on a grand tour of Europe in 1885, where he contracted typhus and died.
Stanford was keenly interested in the boy's education and as a memorial to his son Stanford provided a 20 million-dollar endowment to found the Leland Stanford Junior University in Palo Alto. The school opened in 1891 and grew to become one of the country's most prestigious universities. With total giving that would amount today to $478 million, Stanford personally funded the operations of the university during its early years.
Leland Stanford combined his legal knowledge, business ability, and political influence to become one of California's leading citizens in the nineteenth century. With three colleagues, he established the Central Pacific Railroad, which built the western portion of the first transcontinental railroad, and served as its president. The Big Four, as they came to be known, earned an estimated profit of $54 million from that venture alone.
Stanford's philanthropy, principally through the establishment of Stanford University, has made his legacy the biggest of the Big Four, who are remembered today largely by the banks and hotels in California that bear their names. While Stanford himself did not live to see the university grow and prosper, it has become recognized as one of the finest universities in the United States.
Religion
Leland and Jane Stanford reflected a late 19th-century attitude of exploration toward religions other than their own Protestantism. They were interested in the Spiritualism movement, curious about Catholic art, and intrigued by ancient Middle Eastern traditions.
Politics
Once in Sacramento, Stanford became interested in politics. A Republican in a predominantly Democratic state, he suffered defeat in 1857 when he ran for state treasurer, and again in 1859 when he ran for governor. In 1861 he was successful in his bid for the governorship, taking advantage of a split in the Democratic Party caused by the outbreak of the Civil War. During his single term, Stanford successfully kept the evenly divided state loyal to the Union.
Stanford was an effective lobbyist, if not unselfish, on issues of concern to him. It was around this time that he developed a friendship with President Abraham Lincoln, whom he had met as a delegate to the 1860 Republican National Convention in Chicago. He also gained considerable influence through his friendship with President Lincoln.
After he left the governor's office in 1863, he had remained active in influencing legislation in California. In 1885 he had declared his candidacy for the United States Senate and had defeated A. A. Sargent on a strict party vote. He served in the United States Senate from 1885 until his death in 1893.
Views
Stanford was not known for his philanthropy but he donated to particular charities to ensure his family name would become an institution.
Quotations:
"I have always been fully persuaded that, through co-operation, labor could become its own employer."
"A man's sentiments are generally just and right, while it is second selfish thought which makes him trim and adopt some other view. The best reforms are worked out when sentiment operates, as it does in women, with the indignation of righteousness."
"Laboring men can perform for themselves the office of becoming their own employers."
"The only distribution of wealth which is the product of labor, which will be honest, will come through a more equal distribution of the productive capacity of men."
Membership
Leland Stanford was an active freemason from 1850 to 1855. He was also a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows in California.
Freemasonry
1850 - 1855
Independent Order of Odd Fellows
Personality
Stanford bought land in Tehama County, where he maintained extensive vineyards. He owned two wineries, the Leland Stanford Winery in Alameda County founded in 1869, and the Great Vina Ranch in Tehama County. He also had a large ranch, Palo Alto, where he bred horses. He did much to raise the grade of California horses and achieved records in eastern fields. His original methods of training were widely adopted.
He was interested in photography as a means of studying animal locomotion, and in this connection sponsored some of the first successful experiments with instantaneous photography.
Quotes from others about the person
"Perhaps the greatest sum ever given by an individual for any purpose is the gift of Senator Stanford, who undertakes to establish upon the Pacific coast, where he amassed his enormous fortune, a complete university, which is said to involve the expenditure of ten millions of dollars, and upon which he may be expected to bestow twenty millions of his surplus. He is to be envied." - Andrew Carnegie
Interests
Wine, horses
Connections
In 1850 Stanford married Jane Elizabeth Lathrop. They had met while he was studying law in Albany, and became engaged before he went west to build up a practice. They had a son, Leland Stanford Jr., who died of typhoid fever while on vacation in Europe.
Father:
Josiah Stanford
Mother:
Elizabeth Phillips Stanford
Spouse:
Jane Elizabeth Lathrop Stanford
Jane played an active role in the Stanford university’s affairs, focusing financial resources on the physical plant and exerting a profound influence on university matters until her death in 1905.
Brother:
Josiah Stanford Jr.
Josiah was a prominent and successful businessman and vintner, as well as, a trustee of his brother's university.
Brother:
Charles Stanford
Brother:
Thomas Welton Stanford
In 1852 Thomas abandoned his plans of schoolteaching for the lure of the Californian goldfields which attracted all six Stanford brothers. By 1858 they ran the largest of the western oil companies.
Drawn to the Australian colonies by rumors of strong demand for kerosene, in December 1859 Thomas Welton and his brother De Witt sailed for Melbourne.
Sister:
Elvira Stanford
Elvira Stanford died during infancy.
Brother:
Asa Phillips Stanford
Brother:
DeWitt Clinton Stanford
Brother:
Jerome Bonaparte Stanford
Son:
Leland Stanford Jr.
Leland clearly was the adored center of his parents’ world. When they lost their only child, they decided to build a university as the most fitting memorial.
