Jane M.G. Foster
(1893-1993)
She was born Jennie Martha Guthrie Foster, September 3, 1893, in Manchester, Adams County, Ohio, to Dr. Ezekial and Clara Grimes Foster. Both her parents families were early settlers in Ohio. Her mother was a descendant of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, famous American commander in the Battle of Lake Erie in 1813. Her fathers family came to Ohio when his grandfather was given a land grant for serving in the Revolutionary War (Portsmouth Daily Times, 1993).
The family traveled and lived for a time in Houston, Texas, before going to Europe where Foster attended school in London, England. While in Texas, her father contracted a tropical disease that would take his life later when Foster was only 12 years old. When the family returned to the United States, around the turn of the 20th Century, they settled in Portsmouth and her father established a medical practice on Offnere Street. She graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1912 and then went to finishing school at Howard Seminary in Massachusetts for two years before attending Cornell Law School in Ithaca, New York (Portsmouth Daily Times, 1993).
Foster was a pioneer and she left her mark at Cornell University where she was one of two women to graduate in 1918. She finished near the top of her class and was the first woman to serve as editor-in-chief of any American Law review when she was selected for the Cornell Law Quarterly. Case notes under her name appear in the 1917-18 volume of the Quarterly (Womens Legal History Biography Project, 1999).
She faced discrimination and wasnt able to practice law after finishing law school, but she was very savvy and learned to invest wisely. With all her education and accomplishments, law firms at that time would not hire her. So, Foster worked as a legal assistant with Davies, Auerbach and Cornell in New York City and developed an expertise in restructuring companies under the tutelage of Edward Cornell. She continued working for Cornell until 1930 and left after being passed over for promotion to become a partner several times because she was a woman (Portsmouth Daily Times, 1993).
When Foster left the firm, she traveled to Europe for awhile and upon her return to New York, she asked Cornell Law School Dean Charles Burdick for assistance in finding a position at a law firm, and also at the Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington, D.C. The typical response from the firms was that they flatly refused to hire women on their legal staff (Jane M.G. Foster: A Careful, Humble Woman, 1998).
During this time, in a letter to Charles Burdick, the dean of Cornell and a long-time friend, she wrote: As to politics, Im open to suggestions but Im afraid that its hopeless. You see Im an enrolled Republican but my voting is somewhat peculiar. My first vote was cast in N.Y.C. and of course I voted anti-Tammany. I have continued to vote for the persons I think best qualified One year I went to a League of Women Voters meeting at which all of the district candidates spoke and the Republican talked so much about womens place being in the home that I voted Socialist for that office, Assembly, I think he aimed for (Portsmouth Daily Times, 1993).
Foster decided to move to Brooklyn Heights, New York, and opened a private practice, managing her own investments along with helping friends and family, until the 1950s when she returned to Portsmouth to help her mother who was ill. When her mother died ten years later, Foster retired and lived in Portsmouth the rest of her life. She held stock in companies such as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company the company that later became IBM (Jane M.G. Foster: A Careful, Humble Woman, 1998).
Stating that Cornell was her main love, she made regular gifts to benefit the Law School and the Medical College. She kept in close touch with Cornell Law School giving generously to re-endow the university for the 21st century. Although her gifts were anonymous for many years to education and health care in Portsmouth, in 1990, Jane M.G. Fosters gifts were acknowledged in a Cornell campaign report. She gave $2 million to the campaign to establish an endowed chair in the law school, named the Jane M.G. Foster Professorship of Law in her honor. In 1975, she was named a Presidential Councilor at Cornell, the universitys highest honor. In 1976, she was presented its first Distinguished Alumnus award (Portsmouth Daily Times, 1993).
The Foster Professorship was first held by Peter Martin, who joined the Cornell Law School faculty in 1972 and served as dean from 1980 to 1988. In a biography that appeared in an issue of the Cornell Law Review dedicated to Foster in 1995, Professor Martin wrote: In life, she was uncomfortable with public attention, but she was proud of what she was able to do for legal education at Cornell (Jane M.G. Foster: A Careful, Humble Woman, 1998).
In 1989, Foster contributed to an addition to Myron Taylor Hall at Cornell and at the dedication ceremony on April 7, 1989, Russell K. Osgood, dean and law professor, described her early years, education and career so the gift could be seen in the rich historical perspective that her life provides.
Dean Osgood said, This is not a house that has been built by a captain of industry or by a lion of the bar. This is a house being built with the generosity of a careful, humble woman to whom many opportunities were closed because of her sex will remind us that our society, and our legal system, are not built and should not operate to confirm the powerful in their privileges, but to empower all people, to unlock the potential in the mass of us, to do something and to do it well (Cornell, 1998).
Concluding his tribute to Foster, Dean Osgood read a passage from And Ladies of the Club, Helen Hooven Santmyers novel about life in an Ohio town, not unlike Jane Foster adding and I know for Jane Foster happy and happily do not mean mindlessly, bubbling or joyous but mean living in a morally controlled way through lifes struggles, its agonies, its victories. So it has been and continues to be for Jane Foster and so, if we are very lucky, it will be for each of us. Miss Foster is a presidential councilor, a foremost benefactor of the university, and has been one of the most generous supporters of the law school for years Her gift of professorship will have equally lasting results, for great professors truly create the future The new Jane Foster Wing of the law school is a very visible tribute to her generosity (Cornell, 1998).
Besides Cornell, Foster donated to numerous local institutions including the Notre Dame High School Tuition Assistance Fund, Mercy Hospital Foundation, Scioto County Catholic Schools Foundation, Trinity United Methodist Church (later Wesley United Methodist Church), the Salvation Army, Scioto Area Council Boy Scout and Seal of Ohio Girl Scout summer camp programs, Scioto Memorial Hospital scholarship program, Home for Aged Ladies, the Southern Ohio Museum and Cultural Center, the Scioto County Historical Society and 51做厙 (Portsmouth Daily Times, 1993).
Foster donated funds to establish the Portsmouth Public Library Foundation, and provided funds for restoration of the main librarys entrance with new doors and ornamental wrought iron grills replicating the look of the original Carnegie design.
She also contributed generously to Thomas Jefferson University (formerly Thomas Jefferson Medical School) of Philadelphia, and Sloan-Kettering Institution for Cancer Research of New York City.
In the last years of her life, she confided in a friend that she would like to celebrate her 100th birthday. One week before her birthday in 1993, Jane M.G. Foster died and was buried with her family in Manchester Cemetery (Portsmouth Daily Times, 1993).
Her generous contributions to 51做厙 established the Jane M.G. Foster Distinguished Lecture Series that has brought more than 50 guest lecturers to SSU. The Distinguished Lecture Series is committed to inviting speakers from all different academic backgrounds and perspectives.
References
Jane M.G. Foster: A Careful, Humble Woman. 1998. Cornell Law School. Retrieved 02/07/2011 from .
Never in the Limelight. August 30, 1993. Portsmouth Daily Times.
Womens Legal History Biography Project. 1999. Stanford Law School. Winter 1990. Retrieved 2/11/2011 from .