The Widener family is an American family from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Founded by Peter Arrell Browne Widener (1834–1915) and his wife, Hannah Josephine Dunton (1836–1896), it was once one of the wealthiest families in the United States. Widener was ranked #29 on the American Heritage list of the forty richest Americans in history, with a net worth at death of $23 billion to $25 billion. In 1883, Peter Widener was part of the founding partnership of the Philadelphia Traction Company, and he used the great wealth accumulated from that business to become a founding organizer of U.S. Steel and the American Tobacco Company.[citation needed]
The legacy of Peter and Hannah Widener includes the Widener Library at Harvard University, but even more important was the implanting of a social conscience in their children that has been passed down from generation to generation. While the family fortune dwindled over time through estate taxes and the natural division and redivision by inheritors, many of their 21st-century descendants continue to be involved in charitable works. Widener University in Chester, Pennsylvania, was named after the Wideners as a result of a very large contribution the family made when the college was transitioning from an all-male military college to a co-educational civilian university.[citation needed]
Peter and Hannah Widener built Lynnewood Hall in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, a 110-room Georgian-style mansion designed by Horace Trumbauer, where they assembled one of the most valuable art collections in the country. Left a vast fortune, their offspring became among the most prominent factors in American Thoroughbred horse racing history, as well as founding benefactors of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., Widener University in Chester, Pennsylvania, and the Widener School for Crippled Children.[citation needed]