A History of Stanford Stanford University
A portrait of Senator Leland Stanford, Jane Lathrop Stanford, Leland Stanford Jr. taken in 1878. (Image credit: Stanford University Archives) When railroad magnate and former California Gov. Leland Stanford and his wife, Jane Lathrop Stanford, lost their only child, Leland, Jr., to typhoid in 1884, they decided to build a university as the most fitting memorial, and deeded to it a large ...