Anna M. Harkness

Harkness was born on October 25, 1837, in Dalton, Ohio, and was the daughter of James Richardson and Anna (née Ranck) Richardson. Not much is known about her early life.

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. 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.

After her eldest son Charles died in 1916, Anna gave $3 million (equivalent to $48 million in 2024) 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. In 1920, she donated an additional $3 million to Yale towards increases in faculty salaries.

In October 1918, Anna established the Commonwealth Fund, a foundation dedicated to the improvement of healthcare with an initial gift of $10 million (equivalent to $138 million in 2024). Along with her son, Edward, the foundation made charitable gifts totaling more than $129 million, the equivalent of $2 billion in 2005 dollars, including funds for the establishment of the Harkness Fellowships, the construction of St. Salvator's Hall at the University of St Andrews, the Butler Library at Columbia University, and many of the undergraduate dormitories at Harvard and Yale Universities (known as "houses" and "residential colleges," respectively). The fund was also a major benefactor of the Hampton and Tuskegee Institutes, the Museum of Natural History in New York, the New York Zoological Society and Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, the New York Public Library and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it established the Museum's collection of ancient Egyptian art. The Harkness Pavilion at NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital / Columbia University Medical Center is also named for the family.