In Chap­ter Four­teen, titled “Anna Thomas Jeanes,” we delve into the life of Anna Thomas Jeanes, born in Philadel­phia in 1822. Illus­trat­ed through a posthu­mous por­trait, where she is dressed in a mod­est black gown cou­pled with a white shawl, Anna avoid­ed being pho­tographed or paint­ed dur­ing her life­time, embody­ing a sense of humil­i­ty. As the youngest of ten chil­dren, she grew up cher­ished by her father, though three of her sib­lings had already passed by her birth, and tragedy struck again when her moth­er died by the time she was four.

Anna’s fam­i­ly was well-off; her father’s mer­chant suc­cess afford­ed them a com­fort­able lifestyle near the Philadel­phia har­bor, yet their Quak­er prin­ci­ples led them to eschew osten­ta­tion. Her old­er sis­ter, Mary, took on a mater­nal role fol­low­ing their moth­er’s death, guid­ing Anna and her oth­er sib­lings, sev­er­al of whom found suc­cess in var­i­ous pro­fes­sions, includ­ing med­i­cine and trade. One notable sib­ling, Jacob, found­ed what became Hah­ne­mann Med­ical Col­lege.

Joseph, anoth­er broth­er, had a pas­sion for fos­sils, con­tribut­ing to the bur­geon­ing field of pale­on­tol­ogy. His efforts, along­side the fam­i­ly’s dona­tions of spec­i­mens, played a sig­nif­i­cant role in estab­lish­ing the fos­sil col­lec­tion at the Philadel­phia Acad­e­my of Nat­ur­al Sci­ences. Anna and her fam­i­ly were also con­nect­ed with promi­nent fig­ures such as women’s rights activist Lucre­tia Mott, per­haps sug­gest­ing Anna’s align­ment with pro­gres­sive caus­es.

Quak­erism, the faith of the Jeanes fam­i­ly, dis­tin­guished itself through its advo­ca­cy for equal­i­ty and jus­tice, despite ear­ly con­tra­dic­tions regard­ing slav­ery, as exem­pli­fied by its founder, William Penn. This lega­cy of com­mit­ment to social right­eous­ness pro­found­ly influ­enced Anna, par­tic­u­lar­ly as she grew old­er and inher­it­ed her family’s wealth after their pass­ing.

By 1894, Anna Jeanes had acquired a for­tune of $5 mil­lion, worth approx­i­mate­ly $178 mil­lion today. Rather than indulging in lux­u­ries typ­i­cal of her time, she ded­i­cat­ed her life to phil­an­thropy, guid­ed by an ethos of jus­tice, mer­cy, and com­mu­ni­ty wel­fare. She began bequeath­ing her wealth, sup­port­ing ini­tia­tives like a home for des­ti­tute African Amer­i­can chil­dren found­ed by her sis­ter Mary.

Anna’s reclu­sive nature did not deter her from con­tribut­ing to soci­etal bet­ter­ment, as she pre­ferred anonymi­ty in her char­i­ta­ble endeav­ors. Her quirks, such as pur­chas­ing the house of noisy neigh­bors to pre­serve her peace, and her insis­tence on reject­ing ath­let­ics at Swarth­more Col­lege in exchange for finan­cial sup­port, reflect her dis­tinc­tive per­spec­tive. This chap­ter cul­mi­nates in por­tray­ing Anna as a trans­for­ma­tive fig­ure, unwa­ver­ing in her com­mit­ment to extend­ing kind­ness and improv­ing the human con­di­tion .