Harry Elkins Widener
| Harry Elkins Widener | |
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 Harry Elkins Widener |
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| Born | January 3, 1885 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
| Died | April 15, 1912 (aged 27) Atlantic Ocean (RMS Titanic) |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | businessman and book collector |
| Known for | Member of wealthy Widener family |
| Signature |  |
Harry Elkins Widener (January 3, 1885 – April 15, 1912) was a businessman and book collector from the United States.
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[edit] Biography
Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he was the son of George Dunton Widener (1861–1912) and Eleanor Elkins Widener, and the grandson of the extremely wealthy entrepreneur, Peter A. B. Widener (1834–1915).
Along with his father and mother, in April 1912 Harry Elkins Widener boarded the RMS Titanic at Cherbourg, France bound for New York City. After the ship struck an iceberg, his father placed his mother and her maid in a lifeboat; the women were eventually rescued by the steamship Carpathia. Harry Elkins Widener and his father both went down with the ship. Their bodies, if recovered, were not identified. A memorial service for them was held at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania where stained glass windows were dedicated in their memory.
He was a graduate of The Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, where two buildings are dedicated to him. Widener was a 1907 graduate of Harvard College, where he was a member of the Owl Club. His widowed mother built the Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library, the largest university library in the world, in his memory. Designed by Philadelphia architect Horace Trumbauer, it opened on Commencement Day 1915.
Widener University in Chester, Pennsylvania is also named after the prominent Widener family.
[edit] Legacy in popular culture
A popular but unfounded urban legend states that the former requirement that Harvard students pass a swim test in order to graduate was based on his mother's stipulation in her bequest. His mother requested that students entering the prestigious boarding school, The Hill School pass a swim test, which is still enforced today. Later classes also attribute the daily availability of ice cream in the dining halls to Harry's fondness for this dessert, but this is also false.[1]
[edit] External links
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Wikisource has original text related to this article: |
- Henry Elikins Widener Collection at Houghton Library, Harvard University
- Encyclopedia Titanica Biography of Harry Elkins Widener
- Titanic: Triumph and Tragedy, by John P. Eaton and Charles A. Haas, W.W. Newton & Company, 2nd edition 1995 ISBN 0-393-03697-9
- A Night to Remember, by Walter Lord, ed. Nathaniel Hilbreck, Owl Books, rep. 2004, ISBN 0-8050-7764-2
