John D. Lankenau

John Diederich Lankenau (1817–1901) was a German-American businessman and philanthropist, an executor of financier Francis Martin Drexel, and the namesake of Lankenau Medical Center.

Born on March 18, 1817, in Bremen, Germany, Lankenau attended Bremen Business College. He took a job with a German dry goods importer, and then, in 1835, emigrated to Philadelphia to represent the company in America. He eventually became a partner in the German firm and earned a "large fortune."

In 1848, Lankenau married Mary Johanna Drexel (1822-1873), a daughter of the wealthy Philadelphia financier Francis Martin Drexel, who eventually named his son-in-law one of the executors of his will. After Francis' death in 1863, managing the enormous estate would partially occupy Lankenau for the rest of his life. John and Mary had two children, who died between 1873 and 1882.

Lankenau retired in 1865 and sold his mercantile firm.

Following his father-in-law, who served as Chief Contributing Treasurer of the German Hospital of the City of Philadelphia, Lankeau served as a hospital trustee in 1866-69, and then hospital president until his death. When the hospital sought to expand in 1884, Lankenau sought money from his brother-in-law, Anthony J. Drexel, who agreed on the condition that Lankenau will his art collection to Drexel University. Lankenau agreed, and the university eventually received works appraised at $150,000 ($4,318,200 today), including paintings of the Barbizon School by Charles-François Daubigny (1817-1878) and Jules Dupré (1811- 1889) and by artists of the Düsseldorf Academy, including Andreas Achenbach (1815-1910) and Oswald Achenbach (1827-1905).

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