Blanche Harding Sewall (Mrs. Cleveland Sewall) was a native of Fort Worth, Texas and attended Rice Institute with the class of 1917. She was an artist, philanthropist and, as a patron of the arts, a founding member of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. She organized a private foundation, the Library of Arts. At her husband's death in 1942, she assumed operations of his wholesale grocery company, Carson Sewall & Co. Marine Division. As a memorial to her husband, she donated funds for the construction of a building for the Rice campus, Sewall Hall. Mrs. Sewall died on May 28, 1973, in Houston. Funds from her estate provided for the Andrew Hays Buchanan Professorship and the Noah Harding Professorship at Rice. Andrew Hays Buchanan was her maternal grandfather, and Noah Harding was her paternal grandfather. The Sewall residence, designed by Ralph Adams Cram in the Mediterranean Renaissance style in 1925, was left to Rice University. Blanche Harding Sewall was awarded Rice's Gold Medal posthumously in 1973.
From the guide to the Blanche Harding Sewall Papers MS 431., 1847-1959, (Woodson Research Center, Fondren Library, Rice University, Houston, TX)
