Giving worth to wealth

What do you say about the woman whose philanthropic spirit helped establish the esteemed scientific institute now known as Scripps Research—that she was brilliant? Benevolent? Ahead of her time? Historical perspective validates each of those attributes, yet Ellen Browning Scripps steadfastly refused public acknowledgement of her generosity. She just kept working to spread her wealth where it could do the most good.

For any era, she was a singular woman. She forged a successful career in journalism. She managed her own finances. And she pursued in depth any intellectual interest that attracted her attention. According to one biographer, “She wore out medical dictionaries looking for cures for diseases. She was very, very interested in science.” That avocation proved enormously beneficial to future researchers when Ellen Browning Scripps, inspired in part by the discovery of insulin, founded the Scripps Metabolic Clinic in 1924.

She was well into her 80s by that time and a very rich woman. Having never married and without children, there was no one to whom she could pass along her wealth. Not that family would have mattered. She firmly believed that accumulated money should be put toward the public good, saying, “The most important and beautiful gift one human being can give to another is, in some way, to make life a little better to live.” She put her money behind that conviction.

During her lifetime, she gave away nearly all of her fortune to schools, churches, hospitals and research institutes. Her name is featured on a number of prestigious organizations surrounding the La Jolla area where she lived the last 28 years of her life. Yet she couldn’t work in secret forever. In 1926, TIME magazine featured her on its cover, calling her one of the great female philanthropists in the country. At Scripps Research, we call her a role model.