Who Killed Jane Stanford?

September 1, 2022

Christopher P. Brown delivers this fascinating Gilded Age true-crime story in an academic but conversational lecture style well suited for historian White's (emeritus, Stanford; California Exposures) latest work, especially since the award-winning historian often writes in the first person. Stanford campus tours for prospective students convey the university's origin story of its founders, railroad magnate Leland Stanford and his wife Jane, as grieving parents who founded Stanford to memorialize their deceased son. However, White says the truth involves "a dubious and insecure fortune, laundered into a monument to the founding family, and a school rejuvenated through the blood of one of its founders." White and his students combed through university archives for clues to Jane's death, ruled at the 1905 inquest as strychnine poisoning, and sought reasons why university administrators adamantly insisted that her death was from natural causes. Brown's smooth delivery and excellent pacing glides listeners through the often-bizarre events of Jane's final years, as well as the interesting background details about how robber baron Leland secured his fortune and the incredible levels of corruption at the university and San Francisco government and business sectors. VERDICT A must-listen for history buffs and true crime fans.--Beth Farrell

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from March 28, 2022
True crime doesn’t come more stranger than fiction than the unsolved murder of Jane Stanford (1828–1905), the widow of robber baron Leland Stanford, who died in Hawaii of strychnine poisoning a month after a previous attempt to kill her the same way in San Francisco. Despite her wealth and power (among other things, she and her husband founded Stanford University), her murder was covered up; the true cause of death was concealed from the public for years; and it was reported that she’d died from heart failure. White (Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America), an emeritus professor of American history at Stanford who has taught an undergraduate seminar on the mystery, provides the fruits of decades of research and analysis, in what is likely to be the last word on the case, including a plausible solution. He examines multiple suspects, including Stanford’s private secretary, Bertha Berner, who was present during both poisoning episodes; a Chinese servant; and university president and noted member of the university’s science faculty, David Starr Jordan, who both had access to strychnine and motive, because Stanford threatened his position after a series of disputes about the direction of the academic institution. This is an instant genre classic.