Cora Jane Flood

Cora Jane Flood (1855-1928 ) was a philanthropist who played an integral role in founding what would become the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.

Flood was a prominent resident of California and spent time in Kansas, Missouri, New York, and Europe at the turn of the twentieth century. The daughter of the prominent silver baron James Clair Flood, Cora "Jennie" Flood in 1898 presented what was then called Berkeley College with Lindenwood, in Menlo Park, California, to be dedicated to a "College of Commerce." This act marked the beginnings of the Haas School of Business, which at the time was the first business school at a public university in the United States and the second business school overall.

Biography

Cora Jane Flood was born in 1855 in Sacramento. According to her nephew, James Flood, she "just missed being born in a covered wagon." Jennie was educated by private teachers before entering the Notre Dame Convent in San Jose at the age of 13. Already at a very early age, Flood took a keen interest in the condition of her father's estate, becoming "occupied with the interests and excitement incident to the rising of the Flood fortunes." Her early years have been described as "sheltered."

Flood has been described as "very close to her father" and often traveled to foreign countries with him. She was with him when he died in Heidelberg, Germany, on February 21, 1889. According to her nephew, her father was denied last rites by an Irish priest on the grounds that he had been a Mason. The incident irked Jennie to the point that she changed her faith to Episcopalianism. All of her personal possessions were destroyed in the famous San Francisco fire of 1906. On September 13, 1898, Cora Jane Flood sent a missive to the Regents of the University of California. It read as follows:

Flood's remarkable gift occurred just a few weeks before the formal opening of the College of Commerce. Lindenwood had 60 rooms with 42 bedrooms, 18-foot ceilings, and a 150-foot tower. Flood's donation constituted the largest private gift to the university up to that time. The estimated value of the securities and real estate was $463,133.39 (with an equivalent value in 2013 of approximately $13.2 million). By 2013, the gift's value had grown to over $25 million, comprising one of the largest endowments on the Berkeley campus." Within the family the estate was called Linden Towers, characterized as a "snow white interpretation of baroque architecture"; the Berkeley community often referred to it as "Flood's Wedding Cake." Flood requested that Linden Towers continue to be painted white and its ornamental grounds preserved.