Molly McClain’s biography of Ellen Browning Scripps (1836-1932) is more than an interesting informative, fascinating and inspiring legacy about one of San Diego’s most beloved philanthropists. Her skillful, and at times loving tribute, is a revelation of how one woman, from rags to riches, changed America’s landscape. The former La Jolla resident, American newspaperwoman, feminist, suffragist, abolitionist, and social reformer used her millions to facilitate women’s education and the labor movement while granting public access to science and the arts. In addition, she, along with her brother, E.W. Scripps, established a newspaper conglomerate by linking Midwestern cities with West Coast cities, making themselves and other owners, millionaires virtually overnight. “Born in London, Scripps grew up in rural poverty on the Illinois prairie,” writes McCain. “She went from rags to riches, living out that cherished American story in which people pull themselves up by their bootstraps with audacity, hard work and a little luck.”
McClain’s book emphasizes the overwhelming obstacles Browning Scripps overcame inclusive of “rigid class barriers, racism, sexism, and hostility to ethnic groups.” Browning Scripps lived in a time and place that dictated how “farmers and factory workers invested in the dream of upward mobility, believing that they could improve themselves by their own efforts.”
Reader’s will delight in the fortitude and courage Browning Scripps portrayed on her truly amazing journey. All accomplished with a lack of female role models, she made an enormous amount of money without “manipulating the stock market or exploiting the masses.”
“By the 1920s Ellen was worth an estimated $30 million (equal to $416 million in 2016), most of which she gave away,” writes McClain. And San Diego was the recipient of much of her generosity. Browning Scripps established the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, founded the Scripps College in Claremont and supported The Bishop’s School, the La Jolla Recreational Center, Scripps Memorial Hospital, the San Diego Zoo, the San Diego Natural History Museum and Torrey Pines State Park. According to McClain, she also donated millions of dollars to worldwide organizations dedicated to educating women.
And no one was more surprised by her amassed fortune than Browning Scripps herself.
“Despite the myths that sustained ambition, no one really expected a poor farm girl to accumulate so much wealth, least of all Ellen herself,” writes McClain. “Ellen knew more about knitting stockings and milking cows than reading a balance sheet.”
Browning Scripps’ unconventional path began with her attendance at Knox College, one of the few institutions that allowed women entrance, despite not offering them a degree. She graduated in 1859 with a certificate from the Female Collegiate Department. She returned to Illinois and taught at a one-room school house where “attendance was sporadic, with long gaps timed to major farming chores.” During the civil war she “moved in with her sister and helped cook, clean, and wash clothes at the end of her school day.” McClean writes, “Her life was characterized by constant, ceaseless toil, to which she silently acquiesced.” Browning Scripps joined her brother James E. Scripps in Detroit in 1865 to work on the Detroit Evening News, noted to initiate the family’s mega-millions. After a 12-hour day at the newspaper, she cared for her brother’s home and children, trading childcare for rent in order to invest her income. The home lacked indoor plumbing, electricity and only “one servant to do the scrubbing and cleaning,” “After the evening meal, she and James sat down with the cash box to count the nickels and pennies; they also prepared newspaper copy for the next day,” writes McClain. “At seven o’clock the next morning, they were back in the office again. There was no reprieve. Her younger brothers could escape from work, but Ellen shouldered both a woman’s duties and those of a man.”
No story would be complete, however, without family clashes over “power, personality and property.” At 60 years of age, Browning Scripps garnered roots in La Jolla, which was then considered a “rustic arts colony overlooking the ocean” and previously dubbed San Diego’s favorite summer camp grounds. “She built a modest bungalow, befriended her neighbors and began experimenting with utopian ideas about personal expression and progressive social change,” writes McClain. True to form, she never flaunted her wealth. McClain notes that she “kept few servants, lived frugally, wore out old clothes, ate sparingly, and took public transportation around San Diego until she was 80 years old.” And yet despite her generosity, she never just helped anyone “get rich.” She believed that people should be responsible for their own success instead of enjoying privileges stemming from the success of others. “Having come from a modest background, she had no desire to further the growth of American aristocracy,” writes McClain. “She wanted instead to help ordinary people improve themselves through access to science, art, literature, and education.”
Molly McClain is a professor of history at the University of San Diego. She also coedits the Journal of San Diego History.