Harry Elkins Widener

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Harry Elkins Widener (January 3, 1885 - April 15, 1912) was a businessman and book collector from the United States. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he was the son of George Dunton Widener (1861-1912) and Eleanor Elkins Widener and the grandson of the extremely wealthy entrepreneur, Peter A. B. Widener (1834-1915).

Along with his father and mother, in April of 1912 Harry Elkins Widener boarded the RMS Titanic at Cherbourg, France bound for New York City. After the ship struck an iceberg, his father placed his mother and her maid in a lifeboat; the pair were eventually rescued by the steamship Carpathia. Harry Elkins Widener and his father both went down with the ship. Their bodies, if recovered, were not identified. A memorial service for them was held at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania where stained glass windows were dedicated in their memory.

Widener was a graduate of Harvard University, where he was a member of the Owl Club. Its Widener Library, opened on Commencement Day 1915, is named in Harry Elkins Widener's memory and was paid for with a posthumous bequest from his widowed mother. Widener University in Chester, Pennsylvania is also named after the prominent Widener family.

A popular but unfounded urban legend states that the former requirement that Harvard students pass a swim test in order to graduate was based on his mother's stipulation in her bequest. His mother also requested that students entering the prestigous boarding school The Hill School pass a swim test. Widener is a graduate of the 1902 class. Later classes also attribute the daily availability of ice cream in the dining halls to Harry's fondness for this dessert, but this is also a false belief.^[1]

[edit] External links

Encyclopedia Titanica Biography of Harry Elkins Widener
Titanic: Triumph and Tragedy, by John P. Eaton and Charles A. Haas, W.W. Newton & Company, 2nd edition 1995 ISBN 0-393-03697-9
A Night to Remember, by Walter Lord, ed. Nathaniel Hilbreck, Owl Books, rep. 2004, ISBN 0-8050-7764-2