Burns, Jacob

From GWUEncyc

Alumni

The following was written in 1993:

The University mourns one of its most generous alumni benefactors with the death on 20 June 1993, of honorary trustee Jacob Burns. Ninety-one years old, Burns died of cardiac arrest at his home in Atlantic Beach, New York.

Born in the Ukraine on 15 February 1902, Burns came to the United States with his family when he was 11. Upon his graduation from the District’s Central High School in 1921, he was offered a four-year scholarship to study at the Corcoran School of Art, but he felt he should go to law school. He worked full-time during the day to finance his studies and received his LL.B. in 1924 from the George Washington University Law School, as the National Law Center was then known. He was admitted to the District of Columbia bar the same year.

In 1929, he left Washington and later made New York his home, joining his two brothers in a business venture that eventually became the U.S. Vitamin and Pharmaceutical Corporation. He was chairman when the company merged with Revlon in 1966 and then served as a director of Revlon for twenty years. He was admitted to the Bar of the State of New York in 1932, beginning his career in corporate law, estates, and trusts.

In 1970, Burns received an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from GW. He served on the GW Board of Trustees from 1971 to 1977, when he became an honorary trustee. He received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the GW Law Association in 1975 and, in 1983, an Alumni Achievement Award from the GW General Alumni Association.

Over period of years, Burns provided generous support to the University in the form of gifts for the Jacob Burns Fellowships in the National Law Center, the Jacob Burns Library, and the Jacob Burns Legal Clinics. The H.B. Burns Memorial Building of the GW Medical Center is named for his late brother. He also gave significant gifts to other GW projects: the Charles E. Smith Center for Athletics, Walter G. Ross Hall and the Kayser, Oppenheim, and Alpert Fellowships.

At the time of his death, Burns was chairman emeritus of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University. He was active in wide range of cultural and civic activities in New York, among them the Metropolitan Opera Association. For many years, he was vice chairman of the Committee on Character and Fitness of the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court, a committee which investigates and passes on applicants for admission to the Bar of the State of New York.

In the 1930s, Burns met, by chance, the British portraitist Gerald L. Brockhurst. He arranged to study with him and became a portrait painter himself, producing many likenesses of family members and close friends. He also became a painter of still lifes.

Citation from honorary degree, June 7, 1970:

Graduate of the Law School of The George Washington University, "with distinction," you have served the University with exceptional devotion, contagious enthusiasm and unequivocal loyalty. As a lawyer you have contributed significantly in the State and City of New York to the uplifting and maintenance of the legal profession at the highest level of ethical principles and moral precepts. You have with scholarly decorum fearlessly advocated the principle of "equal justice under the law." As a highly respected successful corporate executive you have made a lasting contribution to the economic and social development of our country; and in the building of mighty corporations, you have never lost sight of the fact that businesses exist to serve people. For your selfless contributions to the public good, to the University and to the country, The George Washington University confers upon you the degree of Doctor of Laws.

Document Information

Images: 1
Photographic Credit: GW University Historical Photographs Collection
Author or Source: By George, Summer 1993; Honorary degree recipients
Document Location: University Archives
Date Added to Encyclopedia: December 21, 2006
Prepared by: Lyle Slovick, Assistant University Archivist

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