Janet Annenberg Hooker (formerly Kahn and Neff; October 13, 1904 – December 13, 1997) was an American philanthropist. She was born in Chicago to Sadie Cecilia ( Friedman) and Moses Annenberg; Moses was the founder of a publishing empire based on '' The Daily Racing Form'' and '' The Philadelphia Inquirer''. She was one of eight children (seven girls and a boy) born to the couple; two of the other children were

Enid A. Haupt Enid Haupt ( Annenberg, formerly Bensinger; May 13, 1906 – October 25, 2005) was an American publisher and philanthropist whose gifts supported horticulture, the arts, architectural and historic preservation, and cancer research. She has been de ...

and Walter H. Annenberg. She contributed $5 million of the $10 million cost of the Janet Annenberg Hooker Hall of Geology, Gems and Minerals, which opened in 1997, and which is the most comprehensive earth sciences complex of its kind. It is part of the

National Museum of Natural History The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. In 2021, with 7 ...

. The

Hope Diamond The Hope Diamond is a diamond originally extracted in the 17th century from the Kollur Mine in Guntur, India. It is blue in color due to trace amounts of boron. Its exceptional size has revealed new information about the formation of diamonds. ...

is one of the gems on permanent display there. Her first gift to the

was the

Hooker Emerald Brooch The Hooker Emerald Brooch is an emerald brooch designed by Tiffany & Co. The brooch is on display in the Janet Annenberg Hooker Hall of Geology, Gems, and Minerals at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington ...

, which she donated to them in 1977, when it was valued at

US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

500,000."Show highlights: 1991 Tucson Gem and Mineral Show", ''Mineralogical Record'', June 2004.Molotsky, Irvin;
Travel Advisory; Jewel With a Past Reigns in New Gallery
, '' The New York Times'', September 21, 2007. Retrieved March 31, 2010. (She had purchased the brooch from Tiffany & Co. in 1955 for an undisclosed price.Morgan, Diane (2007); ''From Satan's crown to the holy grail: emeralds in myth, magic, and history'', Praeger Publishers Inc., ) She later gave the museum the Hooker Starburst Diamonds. She was married three times: first in 1924 to publisher L. Stanley Kahn (divorced 1937), then in 1938 to investment banker Joseph A. Neff (died 1969), and lastly in 1974 to James Stewart Hooker, head of labor relations for '' The Philadelphia Inquirer'' (died 1976).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hooker, Janet Annenberg 1904 births 1997 deaths American people of German-Jewish descent Jewish American philanthropists Annenberg family 20th-century American philanthropists