Chap­ter 14 delves into the life of Anna Thomas Jeanes, born in 1822 in Philadel­phia. A por­trait of Anna, paint­ed after her death, cap­tures her mod­est nature, as she is dressed in a sim­ple black gown and white shawl, avoid­ing any adorn­ments typ­i­cal of her time. Through­out her life, she shunned the spot­light, choos­ing not to be pho­tographed or paint­ed, which fur­ther empha­sizes her hum­ble char­ac­ter. As the youngest of ten chil­dren, Anna expe­ri­enced sig­nif­i­cant loss ear­ly in life, with three sib­lings pass­ing away before her birth. Trag­i­cal­ly, her moth­er died when Anna was only four, leav­ing her father to raise her and the remain­ing sib­lings. Her father, a suc­cess­ful mer­chant, pro­vid­ed the fam­i­ly with a com­fort­able lifestyle near Philadelphia’s har­bor, yet their Quak­er val­ues led them to shun lux­u­ry and excess. This upbring­ing in a faith-based home instilled in Anna a deep sense of humil­i­ty and ser­vice, prin­ci­ples that would guide her through­out her life.

Despite their wealth, the Jeanes fam­i­ly lived by Quak­er prin­ci­ples that empha­sized sim­plic­i­ty and jus­tice. After their moth­er’s death, Anna’s old­er sis­ter, Mary, stepped into a mater­nal role, guid­ing Anna and her sib­lings through their for­ma­tive years. Sev­er­al of Anna’s sib­lings went on to achieve notable suc­cess­es in var­i­ous fields. Jacob, her broth­er, found­ed what would lat­er become Hah­ne­mann Med­ical Col­lege, con­tribut­ing to the med­ical field. Anoth­er broth­er, Joseph, became a rec­og­nized fig­ure in pale­on­tol­ogy, and his work, along with con­tri­bu­tions from the fam­i­ly, helped estab­lish the fos­sil col­lec­tion at the Philadel­phia Acad­e­my of Nat­ur­al Sci­ences. The Jeanes fam­i­ly was also deeply con­nect­ed to pro­gres­sive move­ments, includ­ing women’s rights, with fig­ures like Lucre­tia Mott, a close fam­i­ly friend, fur­ther shap­ing Anna’s views on equal­i­ty and social jus­tice. Quak­erism played a sig­nif­i­cant role in shap­ing her phi­los­o­phy, espe­cial­ly its ded­i­ca­tion to equal­i­ty, which would lat­er influ­ence her phil­an­thropic endeav­ors.

By 1894, Anna had amassed a for­tune of $5 mil­lion, a sum equiv­a­lent to rough­ly $178 mil­lion in today’s terms. How­ev­er, rather than indulging in the com­forts her wealth could pro­vide, she chose to ded­i­cate her­self to phil­an­thropy. Guid­ed by an unwa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to jus­tice, mer­cy, and com­mu­ni­ty wel­fare, Anna direct­ed her resources toward caus­es that would improve the lives of the less for­tu­nate. One of her most notable con­tri­bu­tions was her finan­cial sup­port for a home ded­i­cat­ed to des­ti­tute African Amer­i­can chil­dren, an ini­tia­tive spear­head­ed by her sis­ter Mary. This phil­an­thropic work was car­ried out anony­mous­ly, as Anna pre­ferred to keep her iden­ti­ty pri­vate, allow­ing her to focus sole­ly on the impact of her actions rather than on per­son­al recog­ni­tion. Through these efforts, Anna helped to cre­ate oppor­tu­ni­ties for many indi­vid­u­als who were over­looked by soci­ety, mak­ing a last­ing dif­fer­ence in the lives of count­less peo­ple.

Despite her reclu­sive nature, Anna’s eccen­tric­i­ties did not pre­vent her from effect­ing mean­ing­ful change. For instance, she once pur­chased the home of noisy neigh­bors sim­ply to pre­serve her peace and soli­tude. Anna also took a unique stance dur­ing her time at Swarth­more Col­lege, reject­ing ath­let­ics in favor of using the funds for finan­cial sup­port of the insti­tu­tion. These actions reflect her deeply indi­vid­ual approach to life, where per­son­al com­fort and soci­etal expec­ta­tions took a back­seat to her com­mit­ment to social change. Through­out her life, Anna remained ded­i­cat­ed to cre­at­ing a more just and com­pas­sion­ate soci­ety. Her work con­tin­ues to inspire gen­er­a­tions of phil­an­thropists and activists who see the pow­er of wealth as a tool for social good. Anna Thomas Jeanes’ lega­cy is a tes­ta­ment to the impact of self­less giv­ing and the impor­tance of striv­ing for equi­ty and jus­tice, even in the face of per­son­al sac­ri­fice. Her life under­scores the pro­found effect that one person’s com­mit­ment to help­ing oth­ers can have on the broad­er com­mu­ni­ty, leav­ing a last­ing impact on soci­ety for gen­er­a­tions to come.