Jane Elizabeth Lathrop Stanford was an American philanthropist and co-founder of Stanford University in 1885, along with her husband, Leland Stanford, in memory of their only child, Leland Stanford Jr., who died of typhoid fever at age 15 in 1884. After her husband's death in 1893, she funded and operated the university almost single-handedly until her unsolved murder by strychnine poisoning in 1905.
Jane Stanford
Portrait of Leland and Jane Stanford in 1850
Headline of the San Francisco Evening Bulletin on 1 March 1905, reporting Stanford's death.
Stanford University is a private research university in Stanford, California. It was founded in 1885 by Leland Stanford—a railroad magnate who served as the eighth governor of and then-incumbent senator from California—and his wife, Jane, in memory of their only child, Leland Jr. Stanford has an 8,180-acre (3,310-hectare) campus, among the largest in the nation. It is also frequently ranked amongst the most prestigious and highly respected universities in the world.
Statue of the Stanford family on the Stanford University campus
Center of the campus in 1891
Ichthyologist and founding president of Stanford, David Starr Jordan
William Shockley, Stanford professor, Nobel laureate in physics, "Father of Silicon Valley"
