Background
Florence Peshine Eagleton was a suffragist and a founder of the New Jersey League of Women Voters who advocated women's higher education. She was one of the first women to serve as a Trustee of Rutgers University. She willed more than $1,000,000 to establish the Wells Phillips Eagleton and Florence Peshine Eagleton Foundation, which became the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University.
Eagleton directed that her support be applied:
... for the advancement of learning in the field of practical political affairs and government that a knowledge of the meaning of democracy may be increased through the education of young women and men in democratic government. ... It is my settled conviction that the cultivation of civic responsibility and leadership among the American people in the field of practical political affairs is of vital and increasing importance to our state and nation ... I make this gift especially for the development of and education for responsible leadership in civic and governmental affairs and the solution of their political problems.
Wood Lawn Mansion, a listing on the National Register of Historic Places, houses the Eagleton Institute of Politics.
Read more about this topic: Eagleton Institute Of Politics
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