Anna Thomas Jeanes (1822-1907)
Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
A Quaker activist passionate about public health and education, Jeanes set up a bequest to fund a facility that became Jeanes Hospital and Fox Chase Cancer Center. She also financed the Jeanes Foundation, or Negro Rural School Fund, and appointed Booker T. Washington a trustee. The fund supported the training of black teachers, known as Jeanes Supervisors, who provided southern black youth with academic and vocational education.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Anna Thomas Jeanes was a Philadelphia Quaker who used her wealth to answer some of her era's hardest problems. Her bequest founded the institutions that became Jeanes Hospital and Fox Chase Cancer Center, while her Jeanes Foundation — the Negro Rural School Fund — poured money into education for Black children in the segregated South. She named Booker T. Washington a trustee, and the fund trained the traveling Black teachers known as Jeanes Supervisors.
Why it matters
Jeanes's philanthropy strengthened both public health and Black education at a time of deep inequality, seeding institutions and a corps of teachers whose influence reached across the South.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Anna Thomas Jeanes lived from 1822 to 1907, a span that carried her from the age of slavery through the Civil War and deep into the era of Reconstruction and the segregated decades that followed. She was a Philadelphia Quaker, and that faith mattered: the Society of Friends had long been associated with reform, abolition, and a sense of practical obligation to others.
Her later years fell in the Gilded Age and the dawn of the Progressive Era, a time of enormous private fortunes and, alongside them, a new tradition of large-scale philanthropy. Wealthy Americans were beginning to endow hospitals, schools, and foundations meant to outlast them.
That was also, in the American South, an era of hardening segregation and chronically underfunded schools for Black children, especially in rural areas. The gap between what the law provided and what those children needed was vast, and it framed the problems Jeanes set out to address.
People & events
Jeanes was, in the words of the marker, a Quaker activist passionate about public health and education, and she used her wealth to act on both. She arranged a bequest to fund a facility that grew into Jeanes Hospital and, in time, the Fox Chase Cancer Center — an enduring contribution to public health in Philadelphia.
But she also turned her attention southward. She financed the Jeanes Foundation, also known as the Negro Rural School Fund, and in a striking gesture appointed Booker T. Washington — the most prominent Black leader of the age — as a trustee. That choice put real authority over her money in Black hands.
The fund supported the training of Black teachers who came to be known as Jeanes Supervisors. These teachers fanned out to provide southern Black youth with both academic and vocational education, often traveling from school to school and strengthening whole networks of rural classrooms that the states had left starved of support.
Its place in the American story
Jeanes's philanthropy strengthened two pillars of American life — public health and education — at a moment of deep inequality. On one side of the ledger stand the institutions that became Jeanes Hospital and Fox Chase Cancer Center; on the other, a corps of teachers whose influence reached across the segregated South.
The Jeanes Supervisors matter especially in the national story. In a region where Black schools were routinely underfunded, these trained teachers became a mobile, professional backbone for Black education, extending opportunity to children the public system had shortchanged.
Her decision to seat Booker T. Washington as a trustee also carries weight. It placed decisions about a white philanthropist's fund in the hands of Black leadership, a notable arrangement for its time and one that shaped how the money was spent for the benefit of the communities it served.
If you visit
This Philadelphia marker honors a person rather than a battlefield or a building, so the reward here is reflective. It asks you to consider how one Quaker woman's decisions about her fortune are still felt today — in a working hospital and cancer center, and in the long legacy of the teachers her fund trained.
As you stand here, it's worth remembering that Jeanes's reach extended far beyond this spot. Her money traveled south to rural classrooms she would never see, carried there by the teachers who bore her name.
If you're threading together a Philadelphia itinerary of reformers and institution-builders, Anna Thomas Jeanes belongs on it. Her story links the city's Quaker tradition of quiet, practical good works to the national history of Black education — a reminder that a single well-directed bequest can echo for more than a century.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Plan your visit
NearbyMake a day of it — museums, food, and places to stay near this marker.
Museums & culture
- Betsy Ross House8.6 mi away · 239 Arch Street, Philadelphia, PA
- National Constitution Center8.6 mi away · 525 Arch Street, Philadelphia, PA
- Illadelph Glass Gallery8.6 mi away · 68 North 2nd Street, Philadelphia, PA
- Muse Gallery8.7 mi away · 52 North 2nd Street, Philadelphia, PA
- Larry Becker Contemporary Art8.7 mi away · 43 North 2nd Street, Philadelphia, PA
- African American Museum in Philadelphia8.7 mi away · 701 Arch Street, Philadelphia, PA
Attractions
- Harbison's Dairy Milk Bottle6.5 mi away
- Discovery Center at East Park Reservoir8.2 mi away
- Philly Gun Range8.2 mi away · North Percy Street
- Elfreth's Alley8.6 mi away
- Pennsylvania Railroad, Connecting Railway Bridge8.6 mi away
- U.S. Mint at Philadelphia Tour8.7 mi away
Food & drink
- Independence Mall Cafe8.8 mi away · 50 North Independence Mall East, Philadelphia
- 3J's Cafe8.8 mi away · 317 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA
- Bubble Tea Room8.8 mi away · 319 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA
- PrimoHoagies8.8 mi away · 304 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA
- Fork8.8 mi away · 306 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA
- Menagerie Coffee8.8 mi away · 18 South 3rd Street, Philadelphia, PA
Places to stay
- Holiday Inn Express Philadelphia E - Penns Landing8.5 mi away · 100 North Christopher Columbus Boulevard, Philadelphia
- Clarion Suites Philadelphia8.7 mi away · 1010 Race Street, Philadelphia
- Wyndham Philadelphia Historic District8.7 mi away · 400 Arch Street, Philadelphia, PA
- Four Points by Sheraton Philadelphia City Center8.7 mi away · 1201 Race Street, Philadelphia
- Days Inn Philadelphia Convention Center - Philadelphia8.7 mi away · 1227 Race Street, Philadelphia, PA
- Penn's View Hotel8.7 mi away · 14 North Front Street, Philadelphia
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Related people
- · Anna Thomas Jeanes
- · Booker T. Washington
Themes & tags
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