Bryn Mawr College Receives $15 Million Gift

One of Bryn Mawr College’s most prominent graduates has given back to the school with a $15 million gift.

Wall Street pioneer Isabel Hamilton Benham, from the class of 1931,bequeathed the gift to the school, announced President Kim Cassidy this week.

“Isabel Benham defied convention and broke barriers throughout her life, and, through her accomplishments and her philanthropy, she continues to be an inspiration to successive generations of students here at Bryn Mawr. Her transformational gift will support the College’s top priorities by providing permanent endowment funding for women in science as well as our faculty in international studies,” said Cassidy.

An economics major at Bryn Mawr, Benham was advised to enroll next in a “secretarial course.”

She persisted in the male-dominated industry and made many remarkable accomplishments include being the first woman on Wall Street to study the railroad industry, the first female vice president and voting stockholder at Shearson Hammill (later Salomon Smith Barney), one of the first women to be named partner in a Wall Street bond house, the first woman to be on the Board of Directors of a railroad, and one of the first women to hold a seat on the New York Stock Exchange.

Benham has been credited with helping change the face of the Bryn Mawr campus. Through her donations, the college was able, in the late 1980s, to restore the clock in the steeple of Taylor Hall. She also funded the construction of the current admissions building, which is named in her honor, and helped pay for improvements and renovation to several other campus buildings.

Beyond bricks and mortar, the Isabel Benham Fund for Faculty Research has provided critical early career support to faculty at the start of their Bryn Mawr lives for more than 20 years.

Born in Buffalo, New York, Benham passed away in May 2013 at the age of 103.