Lucile Packard: A Pioneer Woman in West Coast Philanthropy

Histories of the Hewlett-Packard Company focus primarily on the biographies of William Hewlett and David Packard, two of the most prominent names and pioneering influences in America’s postwar technological landscape. While the “Bill and Dave” mystique certainly shaped the company and Silicon Valley, the origin story of the founders’ private foundations has to be examined with a more carefully calibrated gendered lens. In the case of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, it was Lucile, more than David, whose involvement set the organization on a course distinctive of a West Coast way of giving. Her example of philanthropic leadership, when compared with an earlier generation of social reform-driven heiresses and entrepreneurs, such as Margaret Sage, suggests that the specific environment and challenges of postwar California may have given rise to a new type of female philanthropist.

The Packard Foundation was founded in 1964 amidst the onset of two significant national movements: the expansion and professionalization of private institutionalized giving, and second-wave feminism. Private foundations, previously a living-room operation focused on personal relationships and the endowment of major institutions, had entered a new era of professionalization, supplanting the traditional role played by women, creating in their place a “blue-eyed boys network”. Lucile Packard came of age as a philanthropist during this early era of philanthropic professionalization, just as second-wave feminism and calls for women’s equality in the workplace had begun to take hold across the country.

This presentation examines the life of Lucile Packard and her roles as chair of the Children’s Health Council, founder of the Packard Foundation, and the driving force behind the establishment of the Monterey Bay Aquarium. An exploration of her biography and philanthropy in California shows that the role of women in the 20^th century history of philanthropy had not remained static.