Anna T. Jeanes was an American philanthropist.
Background
Jeanes was born on April 7, 1822, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the youngest of the ten children of Isaac Jeanes, a Philadelphia merchant, and his wife, Anna. Her mother died when Anna was four, and she was brought up by an older sister.
Career
Outwardly Jeanes' life was uneventful. For nearly fifty years she lived in the house where she was born. She then moved to 1023 Arch Street, which was her residence until about two years before her death, when she went to spend her last days in the Friends' Boarding Home, Germantown, which she herself had established. She was interested in art, and painted a little; was a great reader, especially in Oriental literature. She published anonymously a collection of poems, Fancy's Flight, which circulated chiefly among her friends, but discloses deep religious feeling, and some gift for poetic expression. She also published The Sacrificer and the Non-Sacrificer (1886). In it she tries to show that the Eastern religions, including the Hebrew, contain two opposing points of view; that of the "Sacrificer, " which beholds Deity as actuated by human passions, a Being to be appeased by sacrifice; and that of the "Non-Sacrificer, " which conceives of God as the personification of love, a Being to be communed with and trusted. Jeanes' independence, resoluteness, and determination to have her own way at any cost, often made her seem eccentric. Disturbed by the people in the adjoining house, she bought it, and let it lie idle. The family homestead she permitted to remain vacant for years, because she could not bear the thought of strangers in the place endeared to her by memories of her parents. When she built the Friends' Boarding Home, she spurned the suggestion that she employ an architect, and planned it herself. Electricity and magnetism were the hobbies of her old age, and Jeanes spent much time in making experiments. Three of her brothers were prosperous merchants. She outlived them, and all the accumulated family wealth came to her. Her disposition of it brought her into nation-wide notice. Long deeply interested in the colored race, just before her death she gave $1, 000, 000 to establish the Negro Rural School Fund, Anna T. Jeanes Foundation. Her will disposed of property estimated to be worth $5, 000, 000, the most of which went to some thirty charitable institutions or enterprises. A bequest to Swarthmore College on condition that the institution abandon participation in intercollegiate athletic contests, created much discussion all over the country, and was not accepted. Jeanes left $20, 000 to the trustees of the Fair Hill Burying Ground "to encourage the practice of cremation, " and directed that after her deatch, which occured on September 24, 1907, her own body be cremated.
Membership
Member of the liberal branch of the Society of Friends; member of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences; member of the Philadelphia Zoological Society; member of the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts
Personality
Jeanes was a little, energetic woman, with a keen sense of humor and a musical laugh, of retiring disposition, and strong-willed.