Who Killed Jane Stanford?: A Gilded Age Tale of Murder, Deceit, Spirits and the Birth of a University

by Richard White

Named One of the Best Nonfiction Books of 2022 by the Los Angeles Times

A premier historian penetrates the fog of corruption and cover-up still surrounding the murder of a Stanford University founder to establish who did it, how, and why. In 1885 Jane and Leland Stanford cofounded a university to honor their recently deceased young son. After her husband’s death in 1893, Jane Stanford, a devoted spiritualist who expected the university to inculcate her values, steered Stanford into eccentricity and public controversy for more than a decade. In 1905 she was murdered in Hawaii, a victim, according to the Honolulu coroner’s jury, of strychnine poisoning. With her vast fortune the university’s lifeline, the Stanford president and his allies quickly sought to foreclose challenges to her bequests by constructing a story of death by natural causes. The cover-up gained traction in the murky labyrinths of power, wealth, and corruption of Gilded Age San Francisco. The murderer walked. Deftly sifting the scattered evidence and conflicting stories of suspects and witnesses, Richard White gives us the first full account of Jane Stanford’s murder and its cover-up. Against a backdrop of the city’s machine politics, rogue policing, tong wars, and heated newspaper rivalries, White’s search for the murderer draws us into Jane Stanford’s imperious household and the academic enmities of the university. Although Stanford officials claimed that no one could have wanted to murder Jane, we meet several people who had the motives and the opportunity to do so. One of these, we discover, also had the means. 8 pages of illustrations

Genres: History, True Crime, Nonfiction, Crime, Biography, Audiobook, Mystery

400 pages, Paperback

First published May 17, 2022

About the author

Richard White is the author of many acclaimed histories, including the groundbreaking study of the transcontinentals, Railroaded, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Francis Parkman Prize, and a Pulitzer Prize finalist. He is Margaret Byrne Professor of American History, Emeritus, at Stanford University, and lives near Palo Alto, California.

Reviews

[Sharon Orlopp · Rating 3 out of 5]

I listened to Who Killed Jane Stanford?: A Gilded Age Tale of Murder, Deceit, Spirits and the Birth of a University on audiobook. The author is Richard White and it is narrated by Christopher Brown.

Jane Stanford and her husband, Leland Stanford, created Stanford University after their sixteen-year old son, Leland Stanford, Jr. passed away. Once Jane's husband passed away, she became very involved with the oversight and management of Stanford University. From the book, it sounds like she was a micromanager and she wanted professors fired who did not share her political and religious beliefs.

There was an initial poisoning attempt to kill Jane but it failed. The second poisoning did kill her.

Initially the book focuses on those who were in the house during the first attempted poisoning. Then the book expands to those from the University who were in conflict with Jane.

My suggestion for improvement would be to trim down the unnecessary information that doesn't help with the flow of the story.

[Michael Perkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

new article based on the book...

https://www.thedailybeast.com/was-jan...

=============

I suspect it was the idea of the publisher to position this as a true crime story. That was a mistake. I have already read a more narrowly focused book, a CSI-style take on the murder, by another Stanford professor who was forced to conclude that the murder was never solved perhaps, in part, by what this current author says:“rarely have I encountered more documents that have vanished and more collections and reports that have gone missing than in this research” There was definitely a coverup.

I know Stanford well. As a child and youth, I could bike to campus very quickly and benefit from all that it had to offer including, today, ongoing use of its libraries. My wife was an executive in their investment office for 15 years. Stanford is very jealous of its reputation and often makes the mistake of engaging in coverups that usually blow up in their face.

=====

Some early weirdness...

"Jane Stanford considered herself an agent of her deceased husband and son. Ghosts ran the university. Jane Stanford told a newspaper reporter that she could not go on if her husband and son did not continue to visit her. “I never,” she said, “transact any business, or in fact do anything worthy of consideration without asking their advice. . . . What would I have done with all my business cares and worries, if I had been deprived of my two spiritual advisors?”

How human beings are like horses....

"In 1907, Stanford President David Jordan published a small book, The Human Harvest, a product of two lectures, the first delivered in 1899. In it Jordan praised Leland Stanford and turned his most famous horse—Electioneer—into a parable that reflected Jordan’s vision of the world. That vision centered on eugenics, his belief in racial rankings, and the necessity to limit the reproduction of inferior humans and encourage the reproduction of superior men and women."

======

Jane Stanford and President Jordan almost destroyed the university through petty in-fighting. The irony is that the poisoning of Jane may have saved the University. Whether it was done to rescue the school, or as part of a personal vendetta, will likely never be known. David Jordan went to great lengths to disguise the cause of her death.

Beyond this story, Stanford always struggled with its identity. When I was in high school, it rather insecurely called itself "The Harvard of the West"

There's no question that it's the riches of Silicon Valley that made Stanford what it is today. This includes a distinct libertarian element and certain level of weakness for the Right, as was already shown years earlier with Herbert Hoover as President of the school. And also by hosting the on-campus institute named after him.

--------

The author gets caught in the weeds a lot. Here is the excellent review from the WSJ to get the meat of it.

https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...

======

The author lays out his cards in his book’s final pages. Bertha Berner, Jane Stanford's live-in personal assistant, he concludes, killed Stanford—maybe because of the money that Stanford left her in her will, maybe because Berner feared that Stanford would find out about the kickbacks she got, maybe because she’d simply had enough. President David Jordan, too, had a plausible motive for murder—Stanford planned to fire him—but the author thinks that the bumbling administrator didn’t have it in him. Instead, the historian concludes, Jordan hid Berner’s crime to protect the university’s image, and his own.

https://www.newyorker.com/books/under...

[E A · Rating 2 out of 5]

The STORY is fascinating—such great material and primary-source research—but the BOOK is poorly written. Wondering why nobody is pointing this out. The book reads like a series of disjointed lecture notes. While I’ll bet his classes were really interesting, this book is a wasted opportunity. White could have benefitted from a better editor (or a ghost writer).

[Maine Colonial · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received a free advance review copy from the publisher, via Netgalley.

This nonfiction book is much more about the subtitle than the main title. Though I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for 18 years, worked in Palo Alto for several years and knew many Stanford grads, I had no idea of most of the stories in this book about the founding and early years of the university. And a lot of the San Francisco history in the book was news to me, too. I sure never knew that Wyatt Earp, yes the Wyatt Earp, was a bodyguard for the editor of the Examiner newspaper in the Gilded Age days when it was not unusual for editors, publishers and reporters to get plugged by the offended targets of their stories.

Ah yes, the Gilded Age. It sounds so glamorous, doesn’t it? Well, of course all that gilt was the result of violence, financial shenanigans, and ruthless treatment of friends, family and foes. Definitely that was the case for Leland Stanford Sr., a railroad baron whose chicanery was the foundation of his wealth. When 15-year-old son, Leland Jr., died of typhoid while on a European trip with his parents, the Stanfords were heartbroken. That was especially true of the boy’s mother, Jane Stanford. She fell for all the spiritualism junk that was so popular at the time, mixing it with her own form of rigid Christian morality, eugenics, and political conservatism.

The Stanfords elevated their dead son to godlike status and decided to establish a university in his memory. Odd choice, considering the pair of them were far from intellectuals and it doesn’t sound like Junior was any brain trust, either. But when you read about the Stanfords’ ideas about this university, it makes more sense. They established trusts and grants that were supposed to be the university’s endowment, but the instruments allowed them to claw funds back whenever they wanted. They insisted on memorials to Junior and to themselves on the grounds. They used land they owned that had little sales value. (Isn’t that an amazing thought considering what Palo Alto real estate goes for these days?) After Senior died, Jane became even more controlling, demanding professors be axed if they expressed ideas that didn’t fit her rigid opinions and whims. Stanford University lost its academic reputation, not to be recovered until many years after Jane Stanford’s death.

Speaking of Jane Stanford’s death, the book does describe the most peculiar events surrounding two poisoning attempts on her life, the second one successful. The list of possible suspects is long, given her controlling, manipulative and mean-spirited personality, and it ranges from household servants, spectacularly incompetent and venal lawyers, various relatives, and many people associated with the university. To be honest, if I’d been around at the time, they’d have had to add me to the suspect list. This is a woman who likely wasn’t sincerely mourned by a single soul.

This is a fascinating study of a lively time in the history of San Francisco and Stanford University, unfortunately marred by a sometimes very long-winded and repetitive narrative.

[Allison · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did not enjoy this. I kept waiting for it to be over. The title is misleading and the author gets way too in the minutiae to the point you no longer care. I’m a history buff who lives in the Bay Area. This should have been a winner but I was just bored.

[Barbara K · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first heard about the murder of Jane Stanford (wife of Leland Stanford and mother of Leland Stanford, Jr., for whom the university is named) while reading Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life. In writing about David Starr Jordan, ichthyologist, eugenicist, and first president of Stanford U., the author of that book describes how Jordan led a campaign to counter the overwhelming evidence that Jane Stanford died of strychnine poisoning. She was getting ready to fire him, so did he have sufficient motive to do away with her?

This book casts a much wider net among suspects, along the way including detailed descriptions of the nefarious activities of the railroad robber barons of the late 19th century (Leland Stanford among them), California politics of the time, the circumstances of the Chinese population of San Francisco, the extended Stanford and Lathrop (Jane’s side) families, and the administration and faculty of Stanford. The Stanfords do not come across as pleasant, much less generous, people. The university was established in honor of their son, who died in his teens, and despite external appearances, their funding was limited and done in a way that left them in control.

After Leland Sr.’s death, Jane’s existing interest in spiritualism went over the top. It controlled her personal life and her decision-making, and she became increasingly interested in making the university a spiritually-oriented institution.

So, lots of people with motives, but the cast with means and opportunity was more limited. Jordan’s blustering was actually successful in deflecting interest in the murder investigation, but then again, most of the San Francisco and Stanford establishment, as well as Jane’s heirs, were happy to leave it that way. 110+ years later, White reaches his own conclusion as to whodunnit, but we will never really know.

If you have any interest in The Gilded Age, San Francisco history, the early days of Stanford University, spiritualism at the turn of the 19th century, or, true crime, I heartily recommend this.

P.s. One last comment: Jordan’s efforts to convince the world that, all appearances to the contrary, Jane’s death was from natural causes bore an uncanny resemblance to today’s world, where reality is not a fixed thing, but whatever is convenient.

[E W · Rating 5 out of 5]

Get the popcorn and settle in. Appropriately given its origins in a railroad fortune, the story of Jane Stanford and the early years of Stanford University is a trainwreck from which you cannot look away.

Who Killed Jane Stanford is part true crime/murder mystery, part Gilded Age conditional philanthropist biography, part academic satire, and part farce. It has everything—greed, grifters, and graft; scandal; crime and coverups; communing with the dead; reversals of fortune; blackmail; and astounding incompetence to name a few.

The book arose from a Stanford class taught by historian and retired Stanford professor Richard White and brings to the fore the strange and unsolved murder of Stanford Founder Jane Stanford in 1905 through strychnine poisoning—following an earlier failed attempt on her life by the same means. (You will never look at Poland Spring Water or baking soda the same way again.)

By the end, White puts forward a fully developed and credible theory of the murder’s identity and motives, but in some ways that is the least compelling part of the story. The more interesting aspect is the fact that Stanford University (aka Leland Stanford Jr. University) arose from such bizarre, haphazard, and anti-intellectual beginnings. It was a third-rate enterprise before it became, post WWII, the revered institution it is today. Founded by railroad tycoon (and California Governor and U.S. Senator) Leland Stanford and his wife, Jane, as a memorial to their son Leland Jr., who died at age 15, the institution was established on the shakiest of foundations of financial and legal irregularities���wholly dependent on the Stanfords (and after Leland Sr.’s death, on Jane alone), highly contingent in its existence, and subject to her every whim, of which there were many (including an endowed chair in what was basically spiritualism). In some ways, Jane Stanford is a woman of remarkable leadership and accomplishment, in others, she is an imperious, capricious, and pitiable caricature. Profound grief was at the center of all of her actions, including initially populating the campus with monuments to herself and her family, ranging from a statue, to a chapel, and a much ridiculed arch that, in effect, became a ruin in the 1906 earthquake. Without knowing the origin story of the University, one would make very different assumptions about the gravitas, beneficence, vision, and respectability of the Stanford family. Their reputation has been as burnished by Stanford University as Carnegie’s has by his libraries. As White puts it, “The University made the Stanfords as much as the Stanfords made the University.” Such was Gilded Age philanthropy.

The portrait of founding President David Starr Jordan (the Stanfords’ fourth choice for the job) is likewise mesmerizing. An accomplished opportunist, he likewise enjoyed for many decades a reputation disproportionate to reality, until his work as a eugenicist caught up with him in recent years.

This is an informative, entertaining, and cleverly written book in which many chickens come home to roost. Highly recommend.

[Angeline Walsh · Rating 1 out of 5]

The dryest account of a murder I’ve ever read.

[John Rowe · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is a mess!

First, it's boring, unless you are interested in academic politics and domestic staff intrigue. Second, the murder mystery advertised in the title is not solved by the end. Third, the writing is sprawling and unfocused. Fourth, the material contained here could be covered in a long magazine article - a whole novel is tedious and disrespectful of the reader's time.

I suspect the topic is a pet favorite of the history professor author, but the rest of us non-PhD candidates will find this one is best to avoid.

1 star!

[Kennedy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Man, this was a struggle. I was bored and had a hard time finishing the book. At the end I didn't really care who killed Mrs. Stanford, but thought everyone benefited from her being gone.

[Drtaxsacto · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone who worked with Universities for more than four decades, I can easily testify that most books about them are horrid. Those volumes that offer to recount the history of a place are mind-numbingly boring. Well, White's book is the exact opposite.

The author who is an emeritus history professor has woven a book with two purposes - he recounts the founding years of Stanford and at the same time explores the murder of Mrs. Stanford. Jane Stanford was poisoned with Strychnine in Hawaii in early 1905. And yet for a number of reasons no one was ever charged with the crime.

White recounts the role of Stanford's first President (David Starr Jordan) and other key figures who guided the university through its uneven years including George Crothers whose care for the university in many ways held the place together.

After a superb chronological recounting of the first fifteen years of Stanford and the trials and tribulations of trying to build a university on the West Coast, White's final chapter makes the point that the first part of the book is a history (a very well researched history in my mind). But he says the story needs to also have a crime story feature - so he does a wonderful job of analyzing the possible suspects in the murder (which Jordan and others tried to obfuscate) and then looks at motive and opportunity. He comes up with a credible suspect.

Whether you are interested in learning about the rhythms of the founding of a new university or want to read a crime novel - this work satisfies both needs.

[David Blake · Rating 1 out of 5]

Because I DNF, have no idea who killed Jane — but nearly died from boredom reading this!

[Shawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written in a style that makes it feel more like a murder mystery novel, Who Killed Jane Stanford? painstakingly details how Jane Stanford, a cofounder of Stanford University, was killed, and who was the likely culprit, in spite of the fact that at the time of her death it was determined that she died of natural causes. The various suspects and possible motives for the murder are thoroughly explored and the author puts forth a rather convincing argument that rampant corruption and a general lack of desire to uncover the truth allowed a murderer to walk free. Enjoyable book and a fascinating bit of history about a prestigious university that the current board of trustees would probably rather leave buried in the past.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

the early years at Stanford were truly whack! I finished this audiobook one hour before it was due back to the library WHAT A RUSH

[ryal menot · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read audiobook version

[Lghamilton · Rating 2 out of 5]

A book not for the general public, because - who would care? And the evidence is presented in such a convoluted manner that who could follow it? White totally lost me when he was tracing the Chinese societies and their links to each other and to corrupt SF politicians, as well as the he-said/she-said of the Ross Affair and the later Affair whose name I cannot recall. What is proven: Jane Stanford was a nut with plenty of enemies and was definitely murdered via poison, and David Starr Jordan was a self-preserving bastard and liar (and noted - not closeted - eugenicist!). That Jordan's name was on a university building for almost 100 years should be embarrassing to the school. Crothers appears as the only stand-up guy in this tale - he should warrant more than a cinder block dorm named after him.

[Maria Almaguer · Rating 4 out of 5]

An unusual but nonetheless interesting true crime account of the mysterious death of the founder of Stanford University. What's unusual? It explores more the cover up of the crime than the crime itself, a clever and astute choice due to the fact that many primary documents have been destroyed (by the San Francisco earthquake in 1906) or are missing and what's left is questionable and unreliable. The founding of the prominent university's very humble (and unprestigious) beginnings, the biography and history of Jane Stanford's life and spiritual beliefs, and the snapshot of Gilded Age San Francisco makes for an engaging read. Add in the author's emeritus status as a history professor at Stanford, his entertaining writing style, and this becomes a must-read for all true crime junkies.

[Krista · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Who Killed Jane Stanford?" is Richard White's effort to transition a class on the Gilded Age origins of Stanford University into a true crime narrative.

What's good: White has definitely landed on a great mystery to feature. The death of the Stanford University founder is a compelling question, and there are many excellent themes to address here. (The story of a university being founded, and the inter-faculty/faculty governance squabbles, alone is both fascinating and hilarious to anybody with a background in university life.) The author shows genuine interest in the figures here--they're clearly not metaphoric dolls being moved about for the pleasures of the true-crime audience.

What's iffier: The book doesn't attempt to answer the central question until the Epilogue, and in so doing, makes for an impatient reader. A part of me wonders if a restructuring of the book would have made it stronger, or if maybe if the title alone is a problem--by starting off asking the identity of the murderer, the reader's attention is cued to focus exclusively on that, vs. the other elements in the title.


With gratitude to the publisher and Edelweiss for an ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

[Denise Wilbanks | This Is My Everybody · Rating 3 out of 5]

BOOK REVIEW: Who Killed Jane Stanford? by Richard White
2022 Publication Date: May 17

⭐️⭐️⭐️️

CONNECT WITH A BOOK | T.I.M.E. SIMPLE LIVING TIP
Never underestimate the act of treating others with kindness...

T.I.M.E. BOOK REVIEW: Focused on the murder of Jane Stanford, the originating primary benefactor and co-founder of Stanford University. The author, Richard White, is a two-time Pulitzer Prize Finalist for his previous books, Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America and The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815... And also is a Professor Emeritus with Stanford University, which is at the center of this book.

Things I loved about this book? The meticulous detail and objective investigation into the historical facts with a natural curiosity and healthy intuition with denoting "this does not add up" assessments.

Perfect for readers who are looking for a book with a History Channel vibe and — at least to my experience — explores a relatively obscure historical crime that remains unsolved although the victim is of great consequence.

One final note: I listened to this book via audiobook. In general, I find nonfiction books are a great match for audiobook "reading". But, in doing my research for preparing my review, I was able to view historical photographs that I hope are included within the print version of this book. The historical photographs were so compelling in connecting me with the characters of this story. So, in this circumstance, I do feel my experience of "reading" this story via audiobook would have been enhanced by having that visual connection as I was reading... Ultimately, we simply care more for the characters' experiences when we care about the characters themselves... ✨😎✨

Pages: 491
Genre: Nonfiction
Sub-Genre: Historical Nonfiction
Time Period: 1885 - 1905 | Gilded Age
Location: San Francisco (California) | Honolulu (Hawaii)

IF YOU LIKE THIS BOOK THEN TRY…
Book: The Devil In The White City by Erik Larson
TV Series: Unsolved Mysteries (Netflix)

--------------------

All my book reviews can be seen at This Is My Everybody | Simple Living | Denise Wilbanks at thisismyeverybody.com/blog/what-book-...

♡ Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC. I voluntarily chose to review it and the opinions contained within are my own.

// COME ON OVER & SAY HELLO!...
Website: https://thisismyeverybody.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ThisIsMyEve...
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/thisismyeve...
Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/thisismyeve...
Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/thisismyever...
Twitter: https://twitter.com/t_everybody

And let's be friends here on Goodreads too!... ✨😎✨

[Stephan Benzkofer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Call this one 3.4 stars.

Who Killed Jane Stanford is a historical whodunit, attending to two crimes: the murder of Stanford University's benefactor and the coverup of the same. Richard White, a Stanford history professor, provides an entertaining and very detailed account and makes compelling cases identifying the culprits behind both crimes.

It is in those details that the book bogs down. In examining every possible suspect for the crime and the coverup, he delves into a great deal of background about Gilded Age San Francisco, police corruption, political corruption, Chinese-American criminal organizations, and the equally thorny and sordid world of university politics. Much of that is fascinating, but some feels like a waste of time. In some cases, it seems a summary explanation could have saved dozens of pages.

Just a few years old, Stanford is not yet on steady ground, and the campus spats and disagreements are nasty. At the center of all of them is David Starr Jordan, the university's first president. He has since fallen from grace for his strong support for eugenics, but White here provides plenty of other evidence about his handling of various affairs to make you want to remove his name from any number of buildings anyway.

I won't spoil the title question here. I will add that it was interesting see how far Stanford has risen. Now one of the premier academic research universities in the world, it spent a good deal of time at the turn of the last century struggling to stay out of the muck and overcome the seedy reputation and narrow views of its benefactors and early leaders.

[Star Gater · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a Nonfiction history book with an unsolved murder. The genre of true crime while correct is as misleading as the title. My first reaction when I saw the title and attempted to view the cover was "Not Lizzie Borden." (Mrs. Stanford's hair).

This reads like history, and repeats over and over the same things. Lizzie used an axe; Mrs. Stanford's killer used strychnine.

There were too many to count suspects, and that is where the book failed for me as true crime nonfiction and became a sour college class reminder.

The author states several times the differences between historians and detectives, and how they perceive a scene. I believe that rationale applies to historians writing history versus a novel. This was incredibly dull.

The author used some collegiate vocabulary that the narrator read well. I would have preferred more of a radio drama male voice. Even with the dry material my attention would not have struggled so much.

The epilogue is the best part, and even that is too long.

Three stars it's thorough and unlike Lizzie, Mrs. Stanford won't get a song.

[Albert Gidari · Rating 2 out of 5]

One of the most tedious books I've read in a long while. By the middle of the slog through it, I no longer cared who killed Jane Stanford, or who White thought killed her, I just wanted her to be dead so I could move on to a good book! But I hoped it would get better. I should have realized that there was no hope when I read this fatuous statement by White: "The best way to cheat people is to bore them, to lure them into inattention so that they don’t recognize contradictions, omissions, and lies. Lawyers excel at this." Apparently so do historians. Sorry, it was not worth the effort. Bored and cheated.

[Andi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, but not very well written. I learned things about Leland Stanford Junior University that I did not know before, but I found the author’s personal interjections about his research somewhat distracting and unprofessional

[Kevin Keating · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listened to the author speak about the book before I read it. It is a really interesting topic and I think White did as well as he could in getting as much information as possible. Unfortunately he was hampered by 1900s-era corruption, and the probable destruction of much information by the actors in the conspiracy to misname a homicide a natural death. Throw in the 1906 SF Earthquake and I'm surprised he was able to come to any conclusions. In fact, the one disappointing part of the book comes at the end when the author is reduced to sort-of guessing who the killer/killers might have been, with very skimpy evidence. And yet I could see from the last chapter how much work had been done on researching the subject from a vantage 120 years in the future. I'm giving the author a 5 for his work (and that of his Stanford classes), but it can get a little slow sometimes when discussing the finer points of Spiritualism and board meetings about legal issues. Overall, glad I read it. I love reading about a brand new subject I hadn't heard of before in history.

[Richard Stuhan · Rating 4 out of 5]


In his meticulously researched and just published tome, Stanford history professor, Richard White, describes the mysterious 1905 death of Jane Stanford and the subsequent coverup of her murder. Along with her husband — railroad baron, California Governor, and U.S. Senator Leland Stanford —Jane was a founder and principal benefactor of Stanford University.

Readers who respond to the question posed by the book’s title — “Who Killed Jane Stanford?” — might well answer, “Who cares?” Since both of our boys are alumni, we as a family have more than a casual interest in the school’s history. But even those with no connection to the school are likely to be intrigued by this “gilded age tale of murder, deceit, spirits, and the birth of a university” — which is the book’s subtitle. Reconstructing these events was no easy task because many of the critical records were destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

The story surrounding the school’s founding is now familiar. While on vacation in Italy, the Stanfords’ teenaged-son and only child, Leland Stanford, Jr., died of typhus. Seized by grief, Leland and Jane established Stanford University as a memorial to their son. Indeed, the school’s official name is the Leland Stanford Jr. University. Those familiar with the rivalry between Stanford and Berkeley are aware that the folks across the bay derisively refer to Stanford as a “junior university.”

Professor White suggests that, before her son’s death in 1884, Jane was more or less a homebody. But she became actively involved in the university’s creation. Following her husband’s death in 1893 — shortly after the school opened its doors — Jane became the university’s principal decision maker. While Stanford had a board of trustees, it largely deferred to her wishes because it could not risk her withdrawal of funding.

So, then, who would want to murder this philanthropic widow? White’s answer is “just about everyone.” Jane is portrayed as imperious, exacting, hypercritical, and mercurial. She demanded unquestioned loyalty and was quick to punish those whom she deemed disloyal. Jane revised her will about as frequently as some persons living in turn of the century California changed underwear. Members of her and her late husband’s family lived in constant fear that they would be cut out of the will, while her servants knew that they could be dismissed at any time. Jane’s behavior created a list of suspects reminiscent of the board game Clue. As the book nears its conclusion, the reader is left to wonder if the murderer was Colonel Mustard in the conservatory with a candlestick or Mrs. Peacock in the library with a wrench.

Jane’s relationship with the university was also strained. While it appears that Leland Sr.’s vision was for a large research university rivaling Berkeley (which, of course, it has now surpassed), Jane had different ideas. Increasingly attracted to “spiritualism” — the belief that the living can communicate with the dead through seances and otherwise — Jane believed that the school should be smaller and more focused on the students’ moral development than their intellectual development. Toward that end, Jane began to rethink the wisdom of admitting women, whom she viewed as a corrupting influence.

Jane was particularly at loggerheads with the university’s first president, David Starr Jordan — who has recently fallen out of favor in Palo Alto because of his writings on eugenics. Attracting qualified faculty and administrators to a new school in California in the 1890s was no easy task, and Jordan was not the Stanfords’ first choice of president. At the time of her death, Jane had told her confidants that she had lost confidence in Jordan and had resolved to fire him. Jordan, for his part, found her unduly meddlesome in the school’s affairs. He was also concerned about her possible conversion to Catholicism. White cites evidence that Jane was seriously considering turning administration of the school over to the Jesuits.

All of that brings us to January 14, 1905, when Jane — in her San Francisco mansion — took a sip from a bottle of Poland Springs water that had been laced with strychnine. But the poison had been added in such a heavy dose that it left a bitter taste. Jane spit out most of what she had imbibed and vomited the rest — surviving the attack. Partly to recover from the poisoning and partly to take herself out of harm’s way, Jane decided to travel to Japan. But during a stopover in Hawaii, she died in her hotel room.

Hawaii based doctors summoned to her room did their best, but could not save her this time. They observed all the classic symptoms of strychnine poisoning — rigid arms and legs, lockjaw, painful muscle spasms, arching of the neck and back. Traces of strychnine were found in a glass of water containing bicarbonate of soda from which she had swallowed and in the bottle from which the baking soda came. An autopsy conducted by the coroner in Hawaii showed strychnine in vital organs. A Hawaiian coroner’s jury found that Jane had been murdered. So, clearly a crime had been committed, and the only issue was identifying the murderer. Right?

Not so fast. From the time they learned of Jane’s death (at the age of 77), a group led by Stanford President Jordan, Jane’s brother Charles Lathrop, the attorneys for the estate, and the private detectives they hired sought to establish that no one had a motive to kill Jane Stanford and that Jane had died of natural causes — a heart attack or indigestion or stress. This theory flies in the face of the observations of the attending physicians in Hawaii, the autopsy, the coroner’s inquest, and established medicine. As one journalist, referring to the recent assassination of President McKinley, put it: “Had President McKinley been shot at San Francisco instead of Buffalo, the local police detectives, if the murderer had not been seen and arrested, would have asserted, no doubt, that angina pectoris was the cause of death, and that the report of a pistol at the moment he fell and the presence of a bullet in his body were mere coincidences not sufficient to offset the presumption that no person would endeavor to kill so good and noble a man.”

The Jordan-led campaign went beyond denying the science. Those suspected of complicity in this dastardly deed were interrogated by the authorities and interviewed by the press. But Jordan, Lathrop, and their cronies persuaded the witnesses to change their stories to support the “natural causes” hypothesis. Each key witness’s statements were wildly inconsistent with what he/she had said elsewhere, and the witnesses contradicted one another on virtually every key point.

Does this sound suspicious? Not to the San Francisco police, who assumed responsibility for the case. Within days of the return of Jane’s body to the mainland, the police concluded — without conducting much of an investigation of their own —that Jordan was right in saying that Jane had died of natural causes. Could money have changed hands when the police decided to close the case? While White does not expressly make that claim, he is quick to note that virtually everyone on the San Francisco police force associated with the Jane Stanford case was later dismissed for corruption; some were tried for and convicted of bribery.

The San Francisco press was apoplectic about these developments. Journalists from several local newspapers took note of the contradictory testimony and the absence of any evidence supporting the “natural causes” hypothesis, and they denounced Jordan and those who supported him. Similarly, the folks in Hawaii — whose competence and integrity were attacked by Jordan — howled in protest. But within a few weeks, the press moved on to other issues. No one was ever charged with killing Jane Stanford. In the inner circle of this wealthy socialite, someone literally got away with murder.

Why were Jordan and Lathrop so anxious to cover up the crime? Jordan was concerned that a trial might reveal the disorder then existing at the university and Jane’s dissatisfaction with his stewardship. Both he and Lathrop were concerned that an investigation and trial might lead to challenges to Jane Stanford’s will and the various trusts that she had created. Such challenges could prove inimical to Lathrop’s financial interests and deprive Stanford University of funds at a time when it was just barely surviving. Jordan — described by the author as deceitful, vindictive, and mean-spirited — remained Stanford’s president until 1913, when he became president of Indiana University.

So, the story is good. The writing — less so. Professor White acknowledges that his account of Jane Stanford’s death suffers from an identity crisis. Is this history or is this a true crime novel? My conclusion is that it is a little of each. As background to the story of Jane’s death, White discusses gilded age San Francisco at the turn of the century, the organization of San Francisco’s Chinese community and the tong wars within that community (Jane’s Chinese servants were among the suspects), the predations of Leland Stanford and his fellow railroad barons, trusts and estates law in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the 1906 earthquake, police corruption, and the early days of Stanford University. While these are all fascinating topics, they tend to make this 300 page book — like this review — a little longer than it needs to be.

Similarly, White considers an excruciatingly long list of potential killers. I understand that one of the features of “true crime” writing — if that is what this represents — is to distract the reader’s attention by identifying various straw men. But White carries this technique too far. There are only about a half dozen “serious” suspects. The other suspects White discusses are just filler. It is as though White did the research and decided, “After a lot of work I have found all this interesting stuff and, by golly, I am going to use it.”

By now those reading this review must be wondering if White identifies the murderer. The answer is yes. I won’t spoil the ending except to say that you will not be surprised. But apparently recognizing that surprise is an element of the true crime genre, Professor White saves one for the end. In the last few pages of the book, White identifies an accomplice never previously discussed. To me, that seems like a cheat.

In the end, I conclude that the story outweighs any flaws in presentation. So, I definitely recommend adding this book to your queue — even if you are from the wrong side of the Bay.

Rick Stuhan

[Alger Smythe-Hopkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

On the plus side, this is a very well informed history of the foundation of Stanford University. In the first half of the volume elements of the story come together into something eerily resembling an Agatha Christie novel; right down to the dowager manipulating everyone around her with changes to her will and threatening some catastrophic choice that dispossesses everyone and puts the entire cast at odds with her.
This is clearly the part framed around newspaper accounts following the murder and so has a lot of narrative readily supplied, but White uses these resources accurately and to good advantage. This part of the book was compulsively readable and informative.

On the minus, almost everything that comes after the murder in Honolulu is muddled and speculative. That said I respect White as a historian and I can't pick fault with any conclusions in the book. However, the volume went from wildly fascinating and compulsive reading to a book I flipped rapidly through to get past the rambling attempts to forestall an investigation. The second half of the book is simply hard to read. I was flipping through entire chapters detailing the politics and corruption of San Francisco, a situation leveraged by Stanford University president Jordan to derail any serious attempt to prove that Mrs Stanford died of anything other than natural causes. For White to take so much trouble would require that he arrive at the promised solution to the century and a quarter old crime with new evidence pointing in a new direction. There was no surprise. Of course the person everyone suspected is who he determines is guilty. Everyone knew at the time who did it, every examination of the evidence since 1905 arrives at the same conclusion.
So the book examining the case in a detailed fashion and at length arrives at the exact same place as anyone in 1905 reading the newspaper. The excuse White gives is that he was interested in the coverup rather than the solution, and it shows. The coverup section is far too detailed for what it accomplishes, and it meanders endlessly. It's simply boring.

So the first half of this book is very worthwhile and fascinating and merits all the rave reviews. The latter half may interest some, so I can't mark the entire effort down on my opinion that I would rather eat sand than re-read that section. So read the first half by all means, it's a crazy story. Then, maybe just try the section on the investigation, see if it suits you. I'll split the difference.

[Brice Culhane · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF at 184 pages. I'm just really bored and ready to b e done with this. It advertises itself like True Crime and while there are elements of that in here it is not. It is more a history of Jane Stanford and Stanford University as a whole.
I think the problem with this book was the marketing- it is not what it claimed to be and as such it made it really difficult to get through.

[Sugarpuss O'Shea · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a LOT: a lot of people; a lot of moving parts; a lot of institutional intrigues; a lot of tangents. So rather than trying to digest all of this abundant information, I decided to drown out the noise, and focus on the 2 women of this tale: Jane Stanford & Bertha Berner, Jane's companion and secretary.

Jane & Bertha had a lot more in common than meets the eye. They both had to fight for her relevancy: Jane was an old women with money, who fought the men who controlled her University; Bertha was a middle-aged woman (by Gilded Age standards), who fought for some semblance for control of her own life. Both women were controlled by the conventions of her time: Jane was deemed eccentric for how she chose to channel her grief; Bertha was deemed an old-maid because she chose career over mores.

As a true crime story, this left me wanting, but to look at this as a study of women in the Gilded Age, I found it far more compelling.

[M · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a really intriguing concept! I had no idea Stanford University had such an interesting, and dramatic start, or equally as interesting and dramatic founders. I listened to the audio book version of this and I really enjoyed the way Christopher P Brown read the book. I did, however have a little issue with the writing it could get repetitive, and droning covering information multiple times making the book longer than it needed to be. The delivery of information was a little bland like just a series of facts were being stated rather than the author building a story, and the ending was a little frustrating. However I did find the story overall interesting, and this was clearly well researched, and a lot of time and effort went in to gathering the information to put this book together.

[Mary Ann Olsztyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can’t believe I actually finished this book. What a mess. The book follows no discernible pattern. It’s loaded with details. It’s not chronological. It’s not by character, which there are far too many to track. The history and attitude of the time is interesting though.