William Andrews Clark Jr. | |
---|---|
Born | March 29, 1877 Deer Lodge, Montana |
Died | June 14, 1934 Salmon Lake, Montana |
(aged 57)
Residence | Los Angeles, California |
Occupation | Businessman, lawyer, book collector, philanthropist |
Spouse(s) | Mabel Duffield Foster Alice McManus |
Children | William Andrews Clark, III |
Parent(s) |
William A. Clark Katherine Louise Stauffer |
William Andrews Clark Jr. (March 29, 1877 – June 14, 1934) was a Los Angeles-based philanthropist and the youngest surviving son of copper baron and U.S. Senator William Andrews Clark Sr. and his first wife, Katherine.
William Andrews Clark Jr. was born on March 29, 1877 in Deer Lodge, Montana. His father was William A. Clark and his mother was Katherine Louise Stauffer. He was educated in France and in the New York area and graduated from the University of Virginia with a bachelor's degree in law in 1899.
Clark was a partner in the law firm Clark & Roote in Butte, Montana. He also served on the boards of several of his father's mining and industrial concerns.
In the mid-1910s, he began collecting antiquarian and fine press books as a serious hobby (he had dabbled in book buying previous to this). In 1919, he hired bibliographer Robert E. Cowan to consult on book-buying purchases and to help with the compilation of a printed library catalog. The first volume of this was printed in 1920 by San Francisco printer John Henry Nash.
He founded the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which debuted in the Trinity Auditorium in 1919, and bequeathed his library of rare books and manuscripts, the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, to the University of California, Los Angeles upon his death in 1934. He also helped to fund the construction of the Hollywood Bowl.
In 1902, he married Mabel Duffield Foster (1880 – January 1, 1903), who died of septicemia following the birth of their son, William Andrews Clark, III ("Tertius") (December 2, 1902 – May 15, 1932). Their son died in a plane crash in Arizona in 1932.
In 1907, he married Alice McManus (1883–1916), a native Nevadan, and they moved their permanent home to Los Angeles in the early 1910s (Clark County, Nevada is named for his father). Their house at Adams Boulevard and Cimarron Street occupied the grounds that the Clark Library still stands on today.