The papers of Jane L. Stanford pertain largely to the founding and administration of Stanford University, along with her personal and social affairs; included in the papers are correspondence, business records, legal and financial papers, speeches, newsclippings, and biographical materials.

Jane Eliza Lathrop was born August 25, 1828, the daughter of Dyer Lathrop of Albany, New York. In 1850 she married Leland Stanford, returning with him to California in 1855 where they settled in Sacramento. Leland Stanford later became President of the Southern Pacific Railroad and Governor of California. Their only child, Leland Stanford, Jr., was born in 1868. During a European tour in 1884 he contracted typhoid fever and died in Florence, Italy. In 1885, Jane and Leland Stanford founded the Leland Stanford Junior University, in memory of their son. Jane was a full partner with her husband in the planning of the University, which opened in the fall of 1891. After her husband's death in 1893, she overcame great financial hardships to keep the University open until her husband's estate was settled. Thereafter, she directed expansion of the campus. She died on February 28, 1905 in Honolulu, Hawaii.

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