He attended The Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, and graduated from Harvard College in 1907, where he was a member of Hasty Pudding Theatricals and the Owl Club.

Widener's godfather was the British banking magnate, Charles Mills, the 2nd Baron Hillingdon.

Book collector and dealer George Sidney Hellman, following Widener's death, said, the excellence of his technical knowl­edge ... His enthusiasm as a collector and his winning person­ali­ty ... afforded many opportunities of obtaining treasures whose acquisition cannot be explained alone on the basis of the wealth which he commanded.

Had he not perished in the Titanic catastrophe, beyond question ... his library would surely have eventually become one of the greatest collec­tions of books in modern times.

[6]Along with his parents, in April 1912 Widener boarded the Titanic at Cherbourg, France bound for New York City.