The Phoebe Hearst Fountain – Music Concourse Drive, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, California

Phoebe Elizabeth Apperson Hearst (1842-1919) was an American philanthropist, feminist and suffragist. She was the mother of the newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst.

In the 1880s, she became a major benefactor and director of the Golden Gate Kindergarten Association and the first president of the Century Club of California. She was a major benefactor of the University of California, Berkeley and its first woman Regent, serving on the board from 1897 until her death. Also in 1897, she contributed to the establishment of the National Congress of Mothers, which evolved eventually into the National Parent-Teacher Association. In 1900, she co-founded the National Cathedral School in Washington, DC. A public elementary school near the National Cathedral School bears her name. In 1901, Phoebe Hearst founded the University of California Lowie Museum of Anthropology, renamed Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology in 1992, in celebration of the museum’s ninth decade. The original collection was founded with about 230,000 objects representing cultures and civilizations throughout history. Hearst was raised a member of the Cumberland Presbyterian faith. In 1898 she converted to the Bahá’í Faith, and helped play a key role in the spread of the religion in the United States.

This This cast stone fountain, a tribute her memory, stands on the south side of the music concourse in front of the California Academy of Sciences. The photograph shows the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in the background.