William Preston Harrison (1869-1940) Biography
William Preston Harrison (1869-1940)
Chicago, IL; Los Angeles CA
Surnames Mentioned:
HARRISON SANBERG
Repository ID #5192 - extensive ancestry available in our online database.
In 1915, he married Ada Maria
Sanberg (not Sandberg) (1885-1947), also of Chicago. She came from a
poor family and he came from a rich and influential family [son of Carter Henry Harrison III, five time mayor of Chicago, and Sophonisba Grayson "Sophie" PRESTON], which may
have had something to do with their eventual move to Los Angeles in the
1920s. The couple had been summering in LA since 1916. They had one son,
Carter Preston Harrison [Preston Carter Harrison b. 1921]
William Preston Harrison worked in real estate in Chicago. He was also
editor and publisher of the Chicago Times from 1891 to 1895. Between
1888 and 1915 he traveled widely as a correspondent for several
newpapers. After the couple moved to LA, they began donating paintings
(first contemporary American art and later contemporary French art) to
the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), then called the Los
Angeles County Museum of History, Science, and Art. They are noteworthy
for being the museum's first and for a long time only major donors;
their donations formed the basis for the museum's collection. For a time
in the 1920s, Harrison had the title of Honorary Art Curator at the
museum.
Source:
Sources are listed in the book
American Art: A Catalogue of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Collection by Ilene Susan Fort and Michael Quick. 1991.
Other sources:
Nancy Dustin Wall Moure. An Art Museum for Los Angeles. Ph.D.
Dissertation, UCLA, 1978; and Winifred Haines Higgins. Art Collecting in
the Los Angeles Area 1910-1960. Ph.D. Dissertation, UCLA, 1964.
Submitted by Jennifer Boynton.
See also Pocahontas' Descendants with Corrections and Additions by Stuart E. Brown Jr., Loraine F Myers, and Eileen M. Chappel, Pocahontas Foundation, 1994. ISBN# 0-8063-1407-9. Reprinted by Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc, Baltimore, MD.
Visit Milancie Adams website for additional info on this family. Note - be sure to go to her home page and follow some of the other Harrison links in her family as well.
The Harrison Genealogy Repository http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~harrisonrep
Last Updated: 21 February 1998
© 1998 Josephine Bass and Becky Bonner. All rights reserved.
