(Image credit: Megan Victor). Stanford attended the common school until 1836 and was tutored at home until 1839. Amasa Leland Stanford (March 9, 1824 – June 21, 1893) was an American industrialist and politician. [15][41], "Senator Stanford" redirects here. The research confirmed that Chinese laborers who helped build the Stanford campus had once lived there. “But these were people with complex and complete lives, so looking at a place where they lived really allows us to get a better glimpse into what their lives might have been like.”, A Chinese gardener working on the grounds of the Stanfords’ Palo Alto residence. The result was the proto-film Sallie Gardner at a Gallop (1878). Stanford moved with his family from Sacramento to San Francisco in 1874, where he assumed presidency of the Occidental and Oriental Steamship Company, the steamship line to Japan and China associated with the Central Pacific. Following Stanford's governorship, the term of office changed from two years to four years, in line with legislation passed during his time in office. [15], The Southern Pacific Company was organized in 1884 as a holding company for the Central Pacific-Southern Pacific system. Stanford ran unsuccessfully for governor of California in 1859. Stanford was born in 1824 in what was then Watervliet, New York (now the Town of Colonie). Documentation shows that Chinese workers had a variety of jobs and the potential for upward mobility, and were also paid the same as white workers. [24][25], Stanford was politically active and became a leading member of the Republican Party. [17][page needed]. In 1852, having lost his law library and other property to a fire, Stanford followed his five brothers to California during the California Gold Rush. He attended Clinton Liberal Institute, in Clinton, New York, and studied law at Cazenovia Seminary in Cazenovia, New York, in 1841–45. However, little is known about the personal lives and identities of these Chinese employees. Stanford News is a publication of Stanford University Communications. Leland Stanford, president of the railroad, had been elected governor on a program opposing Chinese immigration, calling the Chinese “the dregs” of Asia and declaring to the state legislature a year earlier, “The presence of numbers of that degraded and distinct people [Chinese] would exercise a deleterious effect upon the superior race.” 1 What has largely been left out of the narrative of the First Transcontinental Railroad is the estimated 15,000 to 20,000 Chinese laborers who worked on the Central Pacific Railroad. [16], Stanford was elected chairman of the Southern Pacific Railroad's executive committee in 1890, and he held this post and the presidency of the Central Pacific Railroad until his death. “That means the students that are enrolled in this class will have a hand in telling this story and telling a little bit more about Stanford’s history,” Victor said. The following timeline presents some historical and contextual background on the Arboretum Chinese Labor Quarters. He served as a justice of the peace and helped organize the Sacramento Library Association, which later became the Sacramento Public Library. There can be no doubt but that the presence among us of numbers of degraded and distinct people must exercise a deleterious influence upon the superior race, and to a certain extent, repel desirable immigration. Even Leland Stanford, whose anti-Chinese views were central to his gubernatorial campaign, changed his tune. Now the Leland Stanford Mansion State Historic Park, the house museum is also used for California state social occasions. Clipping found in The Record-Union in Sacramento, California on Jan 7, 1889. As the Palo Alto breeding farm was later developed into the Stanford University, the university was nicknamed "The Farm". [33], Stanford was initially acclaimed for his frank statements, but later lost support when it was revealed that his Central Pacific Railroad was also importing Chinese workers to construct the railroad. Later, he served in the United States Senate from 1885 until his death in 1893. After being admitted to the bar in 1848, Stanford moved with many other settlers to Port Washington, Wisconsin, where he began a law practice with Wesley Pierce. The wealth of the Stanford family during the late 19th century is estimated at about $50 million (equivalent to $1,537,000,000 today). [32] Anti-Chinese sentiment became a political issue over time. Leland Stanford combined his legal knowledge, business ability, and political influence to become one of California's leading citizens in the nineteenth century. In a message to the legislature in January 1862, Governor Stanford said: To my mind it is clear, that the settlement among us of an inferior race is to be discouraged by every legitimate means. Even before the establishment of the university, Leland Stanford employed Chinese migrants to maintain and operate his Palo Alto Stock Farm, raise and train his horses, work in vineyards and wineries, and tend to the orchards and gardens. He went into business with his brothers and became the keeper of a general store for miners at Michigan City, California, later the name changed to Michigan Bluff in Placer County; later he had a wholesale house. A letter from Leland Stanford, former governor of California and president Central Pacific, requesting additional labor to work on rail lines. Judith Haccou, former director of graduate admissions, was known for her dedication to Stanford students, staff and faculty and her institutional memory. He served for four years as chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds,and also served on the Naval Committee. He was elected governor in a second campaign in 1861. Many Chinese workers lost their lives from overwork and accidents while blasting the railroad through the Sierra Nevadas. Leland Stanford’s most ambitious business venture, the western portion of America’s first transcontinental railroad, was racing toward completion at Promontory, Utah. Its first student, admitted to Encina Hall that day, was Herbert Hoover, who went on to become the 31st U.S. President. The other three associates were Charles Crocker, Mark Hopkins, and Collis P. Huntington. Beginning in the 1870s, anti-Chinese discrimination spread rapidly across the western United States. Stanford" in his honor, is preserved on static display at the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento.[9][11][12]. Modern Chinese. He was even given the honor of driving the final spike. Biography of Leland Stanford, U.S. senator from California and, as the president of the Central Pacific Railroad, one of the builders of the first U.S. transcontinental railroad. He was one of eight children of Josiah and Elizabeth Phillips Stanford. Delivered: January 10, 1862. Stanford was raised on family farms in the Lisha Kill and Roessleville (after 1836) areas of Watervliet. [9], He was the eighth Governor of California, serving from January 1862 to December 1863, and the first Republican governor. [16], He is widely considered a robber baron. We just don’t know,” she said. Stanford was defeated in his 1857 bid for California state treasurer, and his 1859 bid for the office of governor of California. “You see this especially after the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, where people are trying to protect the Chinese workers that they have,” Victor said. In 1855, he returned to Albany to join his wife but found the pace of Eastern life too slow after the excitement of developing California. The Stanfords donated approximately United States dollar 40 million[36] (equivalent to $1,138,000,000 today) to develop the university, which held its opening exercises October 1, 1891. Large numbers of this class are already here; and, unless we do something early to check their immigration, the question, which of the two tides of immigration, meeting upon the shores of the Pacific, shall be turned back, will be forced upon our consideration, when far more difficult than now of disposal. [9] The couple did not have any children for years, until their only child, a son, Leland DeWitt Stanford, was born in 1868 when his father was forty-four.[10]. Victor hopes the excavations will also reveal whether the workers had a garden or kept livestock, and whether women were present in the labor quarters; most are thought to have been occupied mostly, if not exclusively, by men. Modern Chinese. [13] Stanford was a director of Wells Fargo and Company from 1870 to January 1884. On September 30, 1850, Stanford married Jane Elizabeth Lathrop in Albany, New York. She was the daughter of Dyer Lathrop, a merchant of that city, and Jane Anne (Shields) Lathrop. The greater portion of the laborers employed by us are Chinese, who constitute a large element in the population of California. 47 in Michigan Bluff, California. [8] His father presented him with a law library said to be the finest north of Milwaukee. The Big Four, as they came to be known, earned an estimated profit of $54 million from that venture alone. He is one of the 19th-century entrepreneurial tycoons called robber barons. (Image credit: Courtesy Stanford University Digital Archives). Leland and Jane Stanford kept meticulous notes about the day-to-day operations of the Palo Alto Stock Farm and the early days of the university. This type of lab is capable of handling microbes that can cause serious or potentially lethal disease through inhalation, such as SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19. The Elm Grove home was razed in the 1940s. He was president and director of the Central Pacific Railroad the entire time he sat in the Senate. The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University (“Stanford”) appeals from orders of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“Board”) in three interference proceedings between Stanford and the Chinese University of Hong Kong (“CUHK”). 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