Jane K. Sather (''née'' Krom; March 9, 1824 – December 11, 1911) was an American philanthropist and one of the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

's most significant benefactors. She founded the Sather Professorship of Classical Literature and the Sather Professorship of History at Berkeley.

Personal life and politics

She was born Jane Krom in

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

on March 9, 1824, to a French mother and a Dutch father. Krom married

Peder Sather Peder Sather (September 25, 1810 – December 28, 1886) was a Norwegian-born American banker who is best known for his legacy to the University of California, Berkeley. His widow, Jane K. Sather, donated money in his memory for two of the sc ...

, a trustee of the University of California, in 1882 after the death of her first husband and Peder's first wife. Her first husband is named in some sources as John Reade or John Read. She was a keen supporter of women's suffrage and a prominent member of her local branch of

Sorosis file:Sorosis Club rules.jpg, Sorosis Club rules in 1869Sorosis was the first professional women's club in the United States. It was established in March 1868 in New York City by Jane Cunningham Croly. Origin of the club's name Sorosis is a lati ...

(est. 1868), the first professional women's club in the United States. Jane K. Sather died on December 11, 1911, and is buried in Oakland's Mountain View Cemetery.

Relationship with University of California

After Peder Sather's death, the responsibility of managing his fortune fell to Jane. She initially donated $75,000 to the university in 1900, and later a parcel of land in

Oakland Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major West Coast port, Oakland is ...

; further bequests of land and money were made in subsequent years.

Benjamin Ide Wheeler Benjamin Ide Wheeler (July 15, 1854– May 2, 1927) was a professor of Greek and comparative philology at Cornell University, writer, and President of the University of California from 1899 to 1919. Life and career Early years Benjamin ...

, President of the University of California from 1899 to 1919, encouraged Jane Sather to found the Sather Professorship of Classical Literature; this enables a distinguished classical scholar to spend a term in Berkeley every year. She also donated $200,000 to the university for the building of the

Sather Tower Sather Tower is a bell tower with clocks on its four faces on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. It is more commonly known as The Campanile ( , also ) for its resemblance to the Campanile di San Marco in Venice. It is a recog ...

, also known as "The Campanile".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sather, Jane 1824 births 1911 deaths 19th-century American businesspeople 19th-century American philanthropists 19th-century American women philanthropists Burials at Mountain View Cemetery (Oakland, California) Businesspeople from Brooklyn