PAUL HARRIS, Founder of Rotary International

The Rotary’s founder Paul Percy Harris was born on April 19, 1868, in Racine, Wisconsin to George and Cornelia Harris. He was the couple’s second child. At age three, when his family fell on hard times, Paul was moved with a sibling to Vermont to live with his paternal grandparents, Howard and Pamela Rustin Harris. He was raised by his New England grandparents with values of tolerance toward all. He was a mischievous child. He attended primary school in Wallingford and secondary school in Rutland, where he played pranks and skipped class. He also attended Black River Academy in Ludlow but was expelled after only a few weeks. After secondary school, he enrolled in the University of Vermont in 1886. He was expelled with three others in December of 1886, because of his involvement in an underground society. Harris spent the spring with a private tutor, and in the fall of 1887, he enrolled at Princeton University

Due to the death of his grandfather in the
spring of 1888, he did not return to school in
the fall. Harris soon moved to Des Moines,
Iowa, where he was apprenticed at a local
law firm. After completing his
apprenticeship, he studied law at the
University of Iowa. He graduated with a
Bachelor of Laws in June 1891. However, for
the next five years, he worked odd jobs: for a
newspaper as a salesman and a reporter, on
fruit farms, as an actor and cowboy, and on
cattle ships that traveled to Europe. In 1896,
Harris moved to Chicago, where he lived the
rest of his life. It was in 1910 in Chicago that
Harris married Jean Thomson, a Scotswoman
whom he had met at a local nature club. Jean
traveled the world with Harris in support of
Rotary. She helped to make women an
important part of Rotary, eventually leading
to all Rotary Clubs admitting women. The
couple never had any children.