Founder Cora Jane Flood
Cora Jane Flood was a prominent resident of California and New York at the turn of the 20th century who changed the course of business education with the gift that would make possible the Walter A. Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.
On September 13, 1898, Flood, a 43-year-old heiress, presented what was then Berkeley College with a large mansion and 540 acres of land, stipulating that “the net income from property and its proceeds shall be devoted to some branch of commercial education.”
This act, which was worth $1 million at the time–the equivalent of $31 million today—marked the beginnings of the College of Commerce, later renamed the Haas School of Business. It was the first business school at a public university in the United States, and the second business school in the country overall.
In a thank-you note to Flood, California Gov. James H. Budd and University of California President Martin Kellogg praised “the spontaneous expression of your own generosity and broad impulse to benefit the State of California.” It was, wrote Gov. Budd and President Kellogg of the donation of real estate and land to the UC Board of Regents, a “noble gift.”
Early years
Cora Jane Flood, known as Jennie, was born in 1855 in Sacramento. She narrowly missed “being born in a covered wagon,” as her nephew James Flood recounted. She had one sibling, James Leary, born in 1857.
Her birth year coincided with the final year of the California Gold Rush, when 300,000 people flocked to the state seeking untold riches. That population surge played an enormous role in getting California fast-tracked to statehood in 1850.
Flood grew up well off, schooled by private teachers before entering the Notre Dame Convent in San Jose at 13. A family biography describes her as “sheltered” in her early years. Nevertheless, she took a keen interest early on in her father’s estate, becoming “occupied with the interests and excitement incident to the rising of the Flood fortunes.”
In 1879, when Flood was in her early twenties, she had a brief courtship with Ulysses S. Grant Jr., the second son of the recent president and Union Civil War general. The younger Grant met Flood during a visit to California. Accounts describe the young woman as “a handsome girl, intelligent and democratic.” They ultimately parted.
For his part, James Clair Flood made his fortune as a member of the “Bonanza Kings,” four men who formed a silver mining partnership renowned for its Comstock Lode extractions in Nevada. Flood was known for spending on his mansions: the James C. Flood Mansion in San Francisco, and the since-razed Linden Towers in Menlo Park, which Cora Jane Flood gifted to the Berkeley regents. The latter home had 60 rooms, including 42 bedrooms, 18-foot ceilings, and a 150-foot tower. It was, according to descriptions at the time, a “snow white interpretation of baroque architecture.”
Cora Jane Flood was very close to her father, and she frequently joined him for travels abroad and business meetings. She was with him when he died in Heidelberg, Germany, in 1889. According to a 1987 letter from James Flood to genealogist and historian Charles Robley Patterson, James Clair Flood was denied last rites by an Irish priest on the grounds that he was a Mason. Upset by this, Cora Jane Flood renounced her Catholicism and became Episcopalian.
She would endure another loss in the 1906 San Francisco fire, which claimed all of her personal possessions. Flood moved to New York in 1915 to be near her brother’s children, but returned to the Bay Area in 1918. She made another gift to the Board of Regents in 1924, giving her San Francisco home to the regents, who in turn sold the property to benefit the College of Commerce. San Francisco’s Fairmont Hotel became her permanent residence. Flood died in 1933 at age 78.
Honoring Flood on the school’s 125th anniversary
On September 13, 2023, the Haas School of Business honored Cora Jane Flood’s role in the school’s founding at a ceremony commemorating Haas’ 125th anniversary. Senior school leaders unveiled a plaque featuring Flood’s name and engraved image in the Haas courtyard, witnessed by the Haas community as well as three descendants of the Flood family.
In her address to the celebrants, Haas Dean Ann Harrison reflected:
I feel as though I am reaching across more than a century and saying thank you to Cora Jane “Jennie” Flood. I am grateful for her confidence, generosity, and foresight, and believe she would have found today to be a powerful testament to her intention. We are so fortunate that there are Flood family members here with us today celebrating this occasion.
…
It is high time that we make Jennie Flood a permanent part of our campus. I am honored to unveil this plaque, which commemorates our founder and allows us to put a name—and a face—to the origins of Berkeley Haas. Now, students, staff, faculty, alumni, and visitors can learn her name and be inspired by her far-sighted philanthropy. Her father, James Clair Flood, was the son of immigrants who took an eighth-grade education and an entrepreneurial spirit to become one of the “Silver Kings” of Gilded Age San Francisco and a UC Regent. Jennie often accompanied him to his business meetings, and I would go so far as to say she was an informal student of business herself!
Flood’s legacy also continues through an endowed professorship in Flood’s name. Currently, the position is held by Ulrike Malmendier, the Cora Jane Flood Professor of Finance at Berkeley Haas.
The Cora Jane Flood Award, established in 2007, is given occasionally to an alumna, friend, or volunteer who has made a significant impact on the Haas School of Business through her philanthropy. Previous winners include Margo Alexander, FTMBA 68; Gail Maderis, BS 78; Roslyn Payne; Carol Meyer, BS 69, FTMBA 71; Susan Chamberlin, FTMBA 87; and Jennifer Maxwell.
Further Resources
