She was born on October 25, 1837, in Dalton, Ohio,[1] and was the daughter of James Richardson and Anna (née Ranck) Richardson.[2] Not much is known about her early life.[3]
On February 13, 1854, then sixteen-year-old Anna was married to the 34-year-old Stephen Vanderburgh Harkness, an early investor with John D. Rockefeller who became the second-largest shareholder in Standard Oil before his death in March 1888.[2] Stephen had previously been married to Laura Osborne, who died in August 1852, and with whom he had three children, only one of whom, Lamon V. Harkness, was living at the time of their marriage. Together, Anna and Stephen lived at his estate on Euclid Avenue in Cleveland (known as Millionaires' Row) and were the parents of four more children, three of whom survived to adulthood:[2]
Jennie A. Harkness (1856–1864), who died young.[2]
Her husband died aboard his yacht on March 6, 1888,[10] and was buried in Cleveland's Lake View Cemetery.[11] He left an estate valued at $150 million (equivalent to $4.5 billion in 2023) and Anna inherited one-third of his fortune: $50 million (equivalent to $1.49 billion in 2023), consisting primarily of stock in Standard Oil.[12]
In 1891, Anna moved to New York City, but continued to maintain a home in Willoughby, Ohio.[13] She died on March 27, 1926, at her home, 820 Fifth Avenue in New York City.[14] After a private funeral,[15] she was buried alongside her late husband in Lake View Cemetery.[11] At her death, she had already given away $40 million,[16] yet her wealth had increased to nearly $85 million (equivalent to $1.17 billion in 2023).[17]
Their first child, Jennie, died aged seven in 1864. After her death, the Harknesses erected and furnished a memorial pavilion at Lakeside Hospital in Cleveland as a memorial to her.[13][18] On July 29, 1895, within a year of Florence's marriage to Louis Severance, the former Treasurer of Standard Oil, their second daughter also died. Similarly, Anna and her son-in-law Louis donated the funds for the construction of the Florence Harkness Memorial Chapel at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.[19]
After her eldest son Charles died in 1916,[20] Anna gave $3 million (equivalent to $47 million in 2023) to Yale University for the construction of Memorial Quadrangle in Charles's memory, including Harkness Tower, the most visible symbol of Yale on the New Haven skyline. Anna's portrait by Albert Herter is displayed in the dining hall of Saybrook College, part of the Memorial Quadrangle.[21] In 1920, she donated an additional $3 million to Yale towards increases in faculty salaries.[22]
