William Andrews Clark Jr.
philanthropist, book collector (1877-1934)
William Andrews Clark Jr. (March 29, 1877 – June 14, 1934) was an American philanthropist and book collector who founded the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library. He was the youngest surviving son of mining magnate and U.S. Senator William A. Clark.
Early life
Clark was born on March 29, 1877, in Deer Lodge, Montana, the son of William Andrews Clark Sr. and Katherine Louise Stauffer. He was educated in France and in the New York area and graduated from the University of Virginia with a bachelor's degree in law in 1899.
Career and hobbies
Clark was a partner in the law firm Clark & Roote in Butte, Montana. He also served on the boards of several of his father's mining and industrial concerns.
Book collection
In the mid-1910s, he began collecting antiquarian and fine press books as a serious hobby (he had dabbled in book buying previous to this). In 1919, he hired bibliographer Robert E. Cowan to consult on book-buying purchases and to help with the compilation of a printed library catalog.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q8004451. VIAF identifies the subject as 242146998375418941002. The Library of Congress control number is n85361069. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1877, 1934, 1899 and 1919.
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This entry incorporates text from “William Andrews Clark Jr.” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.