Jane Grant

Jane Grant and William Harris in their later years together / courtesy of the Jane Grant Photograph Collection, PH141, UO Libraries Special Collection.

For Love of a Feminist: Jane Grant, William Harris, and the “Fund for the Study of Women”

In 1975, retired financial analyst and Fortune editor William B. Harris willed most of his estate to establish the “University of Oregon Fund for the Study of Women.” By the end of 1984, the sum of his endowment amounted to just over $4 million, the largest single gift the university had ever received.1 At a time when women’s studies was struggling to gain ground in the academy, what led Harris to fund research on women? The story of the Center for the Study of Women in Society’s greatest benefactor begins and ends with his love of a feminist, Jane C. Grant.