Edward Harkness

Edward Stephen Harkness (1874 - 1940) was an American philanthropist. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio, one of three children born to Anna Richardson and her husband Stephen V. Harkness, a harnessmaker who invested with John D. Rockefeller and became the second-largest shareholder in Standard Oil. (His father died in 1888.) Harkness attended St. Paul's School and Yale University, Class of 1897.

His elder brother Charles W. Harkness died in 1916, and in 1917 Anna Harkness gave $3,000,000 to Yale University to build Harkness Quadrangle in his memory. In 1918 Anna Harkness established the Commonwealth Fund by a gift of $20,000,000, and Edward Harkness became its president. The Commonwealth Fund helped build Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.

Edward Harkness married Mary Stillmann, whose family had also been associated with the Rockefellers. Through his philanthropy, he built most of the undergraduate dorms at Harvard University and Yale University, as well as St. Salvator's Hall at the University of St Andrews. He was also responsible for the construction of Butler Library at Columbia University. He also made donations to many New England boarding schools, including donating the School House at St. Paul's and the Harkness tables at many others, most famously at St. Paul's.