Sarah Graham Kenan

Sarah Graham Kenan (February 17, 1876 – March 16, 1968) was an American heiress and philanthropist. She inherited a third of her sister's share of the Standard Oil fortune in 1917 and established the Sarah Graham Kenan Foundation. Through her foundation, Kenan contributed financially to various institutions including the Episcopal Diocese of East Carolina, the University of North Carolina, Duke University, Saint Mary's School, and the Duplin County Board of Education. Her home, located in the Market Street Mansion District in Wilmington, North Carolina, now serves as the official residence of the chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. In 1930, through an endowment she made, the Southern Historical Collection was established at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Early life and family Sarah Graham Kenan was born on February 17, 1876, in Wilmington, North Carolina, to William Rand Kenan, Sr. and Mary Hargrave Kenan. Her father, a Civil War veteran, businessman, white supremacist, and trustee of the University of North Carolina, participated in the Wilmington massacre in 1898. She was a sister of William R. Kenan Jr. and a sister-in-law of Henry Flagler, who co-founded the Standard Oil Company with John D. Rockefeller. Kenan was a descendant of the politician and American Revolutionary War veteran James Kenan. Her grandfather was the Confederate politician Owen Rand Kenan. Her family, members of North Carolina's planter class, owned Liberty Hall Plantation in Kenansville, a town named after her family.

Kenan was educated in New York and in Raleigh, graduating from St. Mary's Junior College in 1893.

Philanthropy After her brother-in-law's death, his oil fortune was inherited by her sister, Mary Lily Kenan Flagler Bingham.

Personal life

Kenan married her cousin, the attorney Graham Kenan, on December 19, 1912. in Wilmington. A funeral service was held at St. James Episcopal Church on March 20, 1968. The Sarah Graham Kenan Auditorium on the university's campus is named after her. The library at Saint Mary's School is named in her honor. The University of North Carolina School of the Arts named a scholarship after her.