Anson Phelps Stokes (philanthropist)

Anson Phelps Stokes (13 April 1874 – 13 August 1958) was an American educator, historian, clergyman, author, philanthropist and civil rights activist.

Stokes was one of three men of the same name; his father was multimillionaire banker Anson Phelps Stokes, and his son was Anson Phelps Stokes, Jr., an Episcopal bishop.

He was born in New Brighton on Staten Island, New York, to Anson and Helen Louisa Phelps Stokes, and attended Yale University, graduating in 1896 with a bachelor's degree. At Yale he was inducted into Skull and Bones. He then traveled, mostly in East Asia. In 1897, he entered the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to prepare for the priesthood, and received his bachelor of divinity degree in 1900, although it was not until 1925 that he formally became a priest.

In 1899, Stokes took the post of Secretary of Yale University, second in command to the university's president, and he also served as assistant rector of Saint Paul's Episcopal Church in New Haven, Connecticut, from 1900 to 1918. Stokes was a favorite to replace Arthur T. Hadley as president of Yale in 1921, and was said to have had the support of a majority of the Yale Corporation, but a vociferous minority insisted that an outsider was needed at the helm of the university, and Stokes was passed over for James Rowland Angell.

In December 1903, Stokes married Carol G. Mitchell. They had three children: Anson Phelps Stokes, Jr. (1905–1986), Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes II, both born in New Haven, Connecticut, and Olivia Phelps Stokes. Anson Phelps Stokes, Jr. was ordained as an Episcopal priest in 1933.

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