Contributions and Distinctions
A major benefactress to the university and its first woman regent, she financed an international architectural competition in the late 1800s to produce a comprehensive architectural plan for the campus. Phoebe Hearst became the first female regent of the University in 1897. When Harmon Gymnasium was built, only five hours a week were allotted for use by women. Hearing the concerns of female students, Phoebe Hearst funded Hearst Gymnasium and social center for women in response. Phoebe Hearst also supported multiple programs at the University and funded the Hearst Memorial Mining Building and the Hearst Museum of Anthropology.
Biographical Sketch
Phoebe Hearst was born in Missouri in 1842. She worked as a school teacher before she married her husband, George Hearst in 1862. Throughout her life she dedicated herself to education, and making it accessible especially to women. In 1891 she donated to UC Berkeley for scholarships for female students. She would later gift the campus the Hearst Mining Building (1902) in honor of her husband and Hearst Hall (1901). The Hall was destroyed by a fire in 1922. Following appeals, her son, William Randolph Hearst, commissioned Julia Morgan to design and construct Hearst Memorial Gym in honor of his mother.
She continued her dedication to education by financing a school to train kindergarten teachers, and founded the first free kindergarten in the US in 1887. In 1897 she founded the National Congress of Mothers, which preceded the National Council of Parents and Teachers, which is now known as the PTA. She served on the Board of Regents from 1897 to 1919 as the first female to do so. In 1919 she passed away from the flu, but forever will be remembered as a prominent philanthropist, feminist, and educator.