HISTORY OF THE TRUST
Profiles of the Founders
By William B. Tyler, Past Trustee
As an introduction to this historical précis it is important to note that the Thompson Trust is one of the oldest charitable foundations in the United States (and presumably therefore in the world), exceeded in duration by only a handful of others such as the Benjamin Franklin Fund in Philadelphia. Its history actually touches some four centuries in as much as Mr. Thompson was born in 1797 when George Washington was still our President. His will, which contained provisions for a perpetual charitable trust, was executed in 1867. His wife, Elizabeth, survived him by more than 30 years and soon after the turn-of-the-20th Century, his trustees began making grants and have continued to do so for over a hundred years.
Who was Thomas Thompson? It is rather surprising how relatively little we know about this man, especially as to his character and personality. It does appear, however, that he may have been a somewhat shy and self-effacing person who lived at home with his mother and sisters until age 48 when he finally developed sufficient resolve to ask for the hand of a reportedly beautiful woman less than half his age. He graduated from Harvard College in 1817 and for a while sought to educate himself for the ministry but soon gave this up to study art.
His wealth, which was considerable for the time, was inherited from his family who had been successful merchants from the 18th Century. Though he may have carried on some business and made investments in Boston real estate, it is not clear that he was an especially astute entrepreneur. But he certainly did display some shrewdness in the purchase and sale of artworks.
Thomas' artistic temperament inspired him to assemble what was at the time the finest collection of artworks in the City of Boston. (This was prior to the coming of Mrs. Jack Gardner to the City.) When his collection was unhappily destroyed by fire, he set about building a new assemblage of fine paintings for which he paid something in the range of $500,000 ... an enormous sum for the times.
Mr. Thompson appeared at times to be capable of considerable petulance as evidenced by his fury with the Boston tax assessors whom he believed were taxing his investment properties excessively. This anger led to his voluntary removal to New York City even though he loved the City of Boston. His animosity is also reflected in a clause in his will stating, in effect, that his Trustees may not distribute any of his largesse in the City of Boston...Yet his estate was eventually settled in Suffolk County, Massachusetts.
Some commentators have used the word "eccentric" in describing Mr. Thompson. He certainly kept a closed mind about the technology in his era. The fact that he refused to travel by either railroad train or steamboat seemed to reflect an aversion to technological innovation, and this meant that all his summer excursions into Vermont and out to the Hudson River were by way of painfully slow horse and carriage. Patience must have been a driving force in his life.
Whether Thompson had a deep-rooted concern for humanity is not really clear. He certainly was not a mean or unkind man. But most reporters on his life say that the benefactions provided for under his will reflected the powerful influence of Mrs. Thompson. Behind the ultimate disposition of Thompson's family wealth as it appears in his will, there is clearly a feminine hand.
What do we know about Mrs. Thompson? First, we know that she came from sturdy but impoverished old New England stock. At the age of nine and well before she could acquire any formal education, her parents placed her in domestic service in order to enhance the family income. It was as a young serving girl in a Lyndon, Vermont boarding house (there were, of course, no country hotels in those days) that she first met Mr. Thompson.
While one clearly sees the influence of Elizabeth in shaping Thompson's concern for the working woman in Brattleboro and Rhinebeck as reflected by the terms of his testament (which appear verbatim below), it was not until after he died in 1869, that she soon became in her own right a leading figure in the philanthropy of her day. With a fortune stated to be in excess of $1 million (comparable to many times that amount in today's inflated numbers), from which she received an annual income variously stated to be $50,000 to $100,000, she went about the world doing good things for people and worthy institutions. Because of her generosity and her true concern for the needs and aspirations of her fellow humans, she was written up in the Biographical Dictionary of "Notable American Women between 1607 and 1950."
Her giving record was nothing, however, if it was not eclectic. She was interested in almost everything. She gave support to finding the cause of Yellow Fever; she provided business pursuits for the heads of families; she underwrote medical and scientific research; she gave support to the temperance movement; she helped child widows in India; she funded programs to improve and establish the right relations between capital and labor; she founded the Town of Longmont, Colorado in the Rocky Mountains; she bought for $25,000 and gave to Congress the famous painting by the artist Carpenter depicting the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation by Lincoln in the presence of his Cabinet ... and so it went.
It would seem reasonable to characterize Elizabeth as one of the truly outstanding personalities to emerge in Vermont history. Though she never had the visibility of such prominent figures as Ethan Allen , Royall Tyler , Calvin Coolidge and a number of others, it is gratifying that the same source also produced a woman of such great distinction and stature as Elizabeth Rowell Thompson.
People in Brattleboro and Rhinebeck have repeatedly asked over the years why the Thompsons became benefactors of their towns. The answer is remarkable in its simplicity: - because people were nice to them. They must have sojourned in other communities on their summer vacations in the country but nowhere did they receive the same hospitality as they did in Brattleboro and Rhinebeck. The many millions of dollars of philanthropic support which have come to these two communities over the past hundred years stand as a dramatic reminder of how simply being friendly can sometimes have a remarkable payback in this world.
At this juncture it might be useful to record here the operative words from Mr. Thompson's Will which were the foundation for his perpetual benevolence. His simple instructions were that his trustees
"apply the net income of the trust fund...for or towards the relief and support, of poor seamstresses, needle-women and shop girls, who may be in temporary need from want of employment, sickness or misfortune, in the towns of Brattleboro, Vermont, and Rhinebeck, Duchess County, New York"
"And I empower my said trustees...to apply [any] surplus to such kindred charitable purposes in said towns or elsewhere, but not however in the City of Boston, as shall be determined by my said Trustees"
What are "kindred purposes", and how do these words enable a progression over the years from a handful of poor seamstresses to the wide array of agencies and organizations that benefit today from the Thomas Thompson Trust today? Fortunately, the intervention of the Massachusetts high court has resulted in a significant broadening of the charitable spectrum across which the Trustees may operate. The most recent judicial decree which came in 1973, gave the trustees authority to support health care, education and the general social or civic betterment in Windham County, Vermont and Duchess County, New York and particularly in Brattleboro and Rhinebeck.
If there is a single distinguishing characteristic of the Trust, it is its orientation towards working women in the 19th Century. In this feature it is seemingly unique. We often need to be reminded that during the early years of our great Republic, there were no government sponsored social welfare programs with the possible exception of the town poor farm. Assistance to poor and afflicted people if it came at all, emanated from the private sector. It lay almost exclusively with kindly people of open minds and hearts, folks like the Thompsons, to bring relief to the underprivileged.
But that was the 19th Century. Today, philanthropy is much more complex. As the diversity of organizations which the Trust has supported continues to widen, the Trustees have found it appropriate to establish some priorities. This process involved looking back to the roots and asking ourselves what, indeed, would the founders have wanted us to stress today in the distribution of their resources?. And it has been a good discipline. Generally speaking, we see the first priority to be in the area of health care - particularly for women. General social services follow close behind with support for day care, emergency shelters, battered women programs, teen centers, nursing homes, summer camps, educational enrichment for children, housing for low income citizens, organizations established to bring relief to people fighting substance abuse and many other agencies with similar missions.
The area of the arts and humanities although considered very important by the Trustees, comprises a second-tier group that is assigned a somewhat different priority. The trustees must make a balanced judgment as to how much of the distributable funds should go toward humanitarian objectives in accordance with the founders' clear cut testamentary mandate while at the same time holding in mind that both Mr. and Mrs. Thompson had during their lives demonstrated an inclination to support the arts from time to time.
It should be noted in closing that the trustees of the Thompson Trust have in recent years made a transfer of all of their early records to the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College as part of its repository of historical material relating to women and industry in 19th-century America.
Who was Thomas Thompson? It is rather surprising how relatively little we know about this man, especially as to his character and personality. It does appear, however, that he may have been a somewhat shy and self-effacing person who lived at home with his mother and sisters until age 48 when he finally developed sufficient resolve to ask for the hand of a reportedly beautiful woman less than half his age. He graduated from Harvard College in 1817 and for a while sought to educate himself for the ministry but soon gave this up to study art.
His wealth, which was considerable for the time, was inherited from his family who had been successful merchants from the 18th Century. Though he may have carried on some business and made investments in Boston real estate, it is not clear that he was an especially astute entrepreneur. But he certainly did display some shrewdness in the purchase and sale of artworks.
Thomas' artistic temperament inspired him to assemble what was at the time the finest collection of artworks in the City of Boston. (This was prior to the coming of Mrs. Jack Gardner to the City.) When his collection was unhappily destroyed by fire, he set about building a new assemblage of fine paintings for which he paid something in the range of $500,000 ... an enormous sum for the times.
Mr. Thompson appeared at times to be capable of considerable petulance as evidenced by his fury with the Boston tax assessors whom he believed were taxing his investment properties excessively. This anger led to his voluntary removal to New York City even though he loved the City of Boston. His animosity is also reflected in a clause in his will stating, in effect, that his Trustees may not distribute any of his largesse in the City of Boston...Yet his estate was eventually settled in Suffolk County, Massachusetts.
Some commentators have used the word "eccentric" in describing Mr. Thompson. He certainly kept a closed mind about the technology in his era. The fact that he refused to travel by either railroad train or steamboat seemed to reflect an aversion to technological innovation, and this meant that all his summer excursions into Vermont and out to the Hudson River were by way of painfully slow horse and carriage. Patience must have been a driving force in his life.
Whether Thompson had a deep-rooted concern for humanity is not really clear. He certainly was not a mean or unkind man. But most reporters on his life say that the benefactions provided for under his will reflected the powerful influence of Mrs. Thompson. Behind the ultimate disposition of Thompson's family wealth as it appears in his will, there is clearly a feminine hand.
What do we know about Mrs. Thompson? First, we know that she came from sturdy but impoverished old New England stock. At the age of nine and well before she could acquire any formal education, her parents placed her in domestic service in order to enhance the family income. It was as a young serving girl in a Lyndon, Vermont boarding house (there were, of course, no country hotels in those days) that she first met Mr. Thompson.
While one clearly sees the influence of Elizabeth in shaping Thompson's concern for the working woman in Brattleboro and Rhinebeck as reflected by the terms of his testament (which appear verbatim below), it was not until after he died in 1869, that she soon became in her own right a leading figure in the philanthropy of her day. With a fortune stated to be in excess of $1 million (comparable to many times that amount in today's inflated numbers), from which she received an annual income variously stated to be $50,000 to $100,000, she went about the world doing good things for people and worthy institutions. Because of her generosity and her true concern for the needs and aspirations of her fellow humans, she was written up in the Biographical Dictionary of "Notable American Women between 1607 and 1950."
Her giving record was nothing, however, if it was not eclectic. She was interested in almost everything. She gave support to finding the cause of Yellow Fever; she provided business pursuits for the heads of families; she underwrote medical and scientific research; she gave support to the temperance movement; she helped child widows in India; she funded programs to improve and establish the right relations between capital and labor; she founded the Town of Longmont, Colorado in the Rocky Mountains; she bought for $25,000 and gave to Congress the famous painting by the artist Carpenter depicting the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation by Lincoln in the presence of his Cabinet ... and so it went.
It would seem reasonable to characterize Elizabeth as one of the truly outstanding personalities to emerge in Vermont history. Though she never had the visibility of such prominent figures as Ethan Allen , Royall Tyler , Calvin Coolidge and a number of others, it is gratifying that the same source also produced a woman of such great distinction and stature as Elizabeth Rowell Thompson.
People in Brattleboro and Rhinebeck have repeatedly asked over the years why the Thompsons became benefactors of their towns. The answer is remarkable in its simplicity: - because people were nice to them. They must have sojourned in other communities on their summer vacations in the country but nowhere did they receive the same hospitality as they did in Brattleboro and Rhinebeck. The many millions of dollars of philanthropic support which have come to these two communities over the past hundred years stand as a dramatic reminder of how simply being friendly can sometimes have a remarkable payback in this world.
At this juncture it might be useful to record here the operative words from Mr. Thompson's Will which were the foundation for his perpetual benevolence. His simple instructions were that his trustees
"apply the net income of the trust fund...for or towards the relief and support, of poor seamstresses, needle-women and shop girls, who may be in temporary need from want of employment, sickness or misfortune, in the towns of Brattleboro, Vermont, and Rhinebeck, Duchess County, New York"
"And I empower my said trustees...to apply [any] surplus to such kindred charitable purposes in said towns or elsewhere, but not however in the City of Boston, as shall be determined by my said Trustees"
What are "kindred purposes", and how do these words enable a progression over the years from a handful of poor seamstresses to the wide array of agencies and organizations that benefit today from the Thomas Thompson Trust today? Fortunately, the intervention of the Massachusetts high court has resulted in a significant broadening of the charitable spectrum across which the Trustees may operate. The most recent judicial decree which came in 1973, gave the trustees authority to support health care, education and the general social or civic betterment in Windham County, Vermont and Duchess County, New York and particularly in Brattleboro and Rhinebeck.
If there is a single distinguishing characteristic of the Trust, it is its orientation towards working women in the 19th Century. In this feature it is seemingly unique. We often need to be reminded that during the early years of our great Republic, there were no government sponsored social welfare programs with the possible exception of the town poor farm. Assistance to poor and afflicted people if it came at all, emanated from the private sector. It lay almost exclusively with kindly people of open minds and hearts, folks like the Thompsons, to bring relief to the underprivileged.
But that was the 19th Century. Today, philanthropy is much more complex. As the diversity of organizations which the Trust has supported continues to widen, the Trustees have found it appropriate to establish some priorities. This process involved looking back to the roots and asking ourselves what, indeed, would the founders have wanted us to stress today in the distribution of their resources?. And it has been a good discipline. Generally speaking, we see the first priority to be in the area of health care - particularly for women. General social services follow close behind with support for day care, emergency shelters, battered women programs, teen centers, nursing homes, summer camps, educational enrichment for children, housing for low income citizens, organizations established to bring relief to people fighting substance abuse and many other agencies with similar missions.
The area of the arts and humanities although considered very important by the Trustees, comprises a second-tier group that is assigned a somewhat different priority. The trustees must make a balanced judgment as to how much of the distributable funds should go toward humanitarian objectives in accordance with the founders' clear cut testamentary mandate while at the same time holding in mind that both Mr. and Mrs. Thompson had during their lives demonstrated an inclination to support the arts from time to time.
It should be noted in closing that the trustees of the Thompson Trust have in recent years made a transfer of all of their early records to the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College as part of its repository of historical material relating to women and industry in 19th-century America.
Records of the Thompson Trust
from the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College, Northampton, Mass.
http://asteria.fivecolleges.edu/findaids/sophiasmith/mnsss116_bioghist.html
Historical Notes
The 1869 will of wealthy businessman Thomas Thompson established a trust fund "for or towards the relief and support of poor seamstresses, needle-women and shop girls, who may be in temporary need from want of employment, sickness, or misfortune, in the towns of Brattleboro, Vermont and Rhinebeck, Dutchess County, New York, the amount being equally divided between the two towns." Thompson's will also required that surplus funds be distributed to other charities in the same towns. Finally, the will declared that the Trust itself would not go into effect until the death of his wife, Elizabeth Rowell Thompson, who died in 1899.
In 1901 the Thomas Thompson Trust (TTT) began to carry out its duties, directed throughout the twentieth century by several Boston-based businessmen and a series of local agents. One businessman in particular, Richards M. Bradley, a native of Brattleboro, was the guiding force of TTT for its first four decades. The first local agent, Augusta Wells, administered the Trust for most of its first twenty years. Florence Hemenway Wells succeeded her adoptive mother, serving as the Trust's local agent from 1921 until the early-1960s.
By 1901, when TTT was ready to begin dispensing funds to the "needlewomen" of Rhinebeck and Brattleboro, the very nature of women's work had changed drastically in the three decades since Thompson's will was first written. In Brattleboro, in particular, there had been significant demographic change. Instead of working from their homes or in small shops employing only a handful of people, an increasing number of the town's working women labored within one of several factories. Furthermore, a significant portion of these women were immigrants from the rural countryside or from other countries, especially Ireland. These demographic changes, unanticipated by Thompson in 1869, shaped the decision making of the lawyers appointed to organize TTT. The organizers were also influenced by Progressive era ideas, and since Thompson's will did not specify a plan for disbursement of funds, they were free to devise a plan within the context of those ideas.
Soon after the creation of the Trust was announced in the local papers, the working women of Rhinebeck and Brattleboro formed local committees in an effort to make the best use of the funds available to them. At the same time, the first trustees appointed to oversee TTT, Richards M. Bradley and Boston-based lawyer, Laurence Minot, had their own vision of just how, and to whom, the Trust should dispense its funds in Brattleboro and Rhinebeck. Guided initially by a traditional sense of noblesse oblige, Bradley, in particular, increasingly sought to shape TTT as a model of Progressive era reform, especially in Brattleboro. Thus, from the beginning, TTT sought to prevent illness among working women and their families through public health programs that stressed education in diet and infant care, and by promoting affordable health care. At the same time, small amounts of money were dispensed outright to women in need, sometimes in the form of a loan.
One of TTT's first major contributions to the town of Brattleboro was the funding of Brattleboro Memorial Hospital. The hospital, opened in 1904, provided hospital care at a reduced rate for those women covered by the Trust. In 1907, the Brattleboro Mutual Aid Association (BMAA) was created and funded by TTT as a way to oversee direct aid to the working women of Brattleboro. Under the aegis of the BMAA, a district (or public) nursing program to oversee education and treatment was established. The BMAA also oversaw a service providing attendant (or practical) nursing service for working women confined to their homes during a serious illness. For those women simply needing a rest, the BMAA ran a vacation house in Niantic, on the Connecticut shore, from 1910 to 1936. In 1917, responding in part to a nation-wide nursing shortage precipitated by World War I, the BMAA created an attendant nursing school while the hospital maintained a training school for graduate (today known as registered) nurses. In this way, TTT sought to address a potential crisis of care and at the same time provide the opportunity for Brattleboro working women to leave factory work for a more professional (and presumably more lucrative) career. The Influenza epidemic of 1918-19 further emphasized the need for trained health care professionals.
The Trust increased outright aid and began an ambitious insurance program in the mid-1920s, open to all Brattleboro residents regardless of gender, occupation, or need. The Thompson Benefit Association for Nursing Service (1926) and the Thompson Benefit Association for Hospital Service (1927), each for a small yearly premium, provided coverage for home nursing care as well as the costs associated with a hospital stay. These programs, too, were administered by Florence Wells as TTT's local agent. They would eventually be replaced in the 1950s by commercial health insurance offered in the workplace by Vermont Blue Cross/Blue Shield.
The New Deal profoundly altered the work of the Trust as, for example, the Social Security Act became law. By the early 1960s, Florence Wells herself was a patient at Thompson House, TTT's nursing home in Brattleboro. Her care was funded both by the Trust and the Great Society program, Medicare. The Trust continues to exist in both Brattleboro and Rhinebeck and in 2001, celebrated its centennial in both communities.
The 1869 will of wealthy businessman Thomas Thompson established a trust fund "for or towards the relief and support of poor seamstresses, needle-women and shop girls, who may be in temporary need from want of employment, sickness, or misfortune, in the towns of Brattleboro, Vermont and Rhinebeck, Dutchess County, New York, the amount being equally divided between the two towns." Thompson's will also required that surplus funds be distributed to other charities in the same towns. Finally, the will declared that the Trust itself would not go into effect until the death of his wife, Elizabeth Rowell Thompson, who died in 1899.
In 1901 the Thomas Thompson Trust (TTT) began to carry out its duties, directed throughout the twentieth century by several Boston-based businessmen and a series of local agents. One businessman in particular, Richards M. Bradley, a native of Brattleboro, was the guiding force of TTT for its first four decades. The first local agent, Augusta Wells, administered the Trust for most of its first twenty years. Florence Hemenway Wells succeeded her adoptive mother, serving as the Trust's local agent from 1921 until the early-1960s.
By 1901, when TTT was ready to begin dispensing funds to the "needlewomen" of Rhinebeck and Brattleboro, the very nature of women's work had changed drastically in the three decades since Thompson's will was first written. In Brattleboro, in particular, there had been significant demographic change. Instead of working from their homes or in small shops employing only a handful of people, an increasing number of the town's working women labored within one of several factories. Furthermore, a significant portion of these women were immigrants from the rural countryside or from other countries, especially Ireland. These demographic changes, unanticipated by Thompson in 1869, shaped the decision making of the lawyers appointed to organize TTT. The organizers were also influenced by Progressive era ideas, and since Thompson's will did not specify a plan for disbursement of funds, they were free to devise a plan within the context of those ideas.
Soon after the creation of the Trust was announced in the local papers, the working women of Rhinebeck and Brattleboro formed local committees in an effort to make the best use of the funds available to them. At the same time, the first trustees appointed to oversee TTT, Richards M. Bradley and Boston-based lawyer, Laurence Minot, had their own vision of just how, and to whom, the Trust should dispense its funds in Brattleboro and Rhinebeck. Guided initially by a traditional sense of noblesse oblige, Bradley, in particular, increasingly sought to shape TTT as a model of Progressive era reform, especially in Brattleboro. Thus, from the beginning, TTT sought to prevent illness among working women and their families through public health programs that stressed education in diet and infant care, and by promoting affordable health care. At the same time, small amounts of money were dispensed outright to women in need, sometimes in the form of a loan.
One of TTT's first major contributions to the town of Brattleboro was the funding of Brattleboro Memorial Hospital. The hospital, opened in 1904, provided hospital care at a reduced rate for those women covered by the Trust. In 1907, the Brattleboro Mutual Aid Association (BMAA) was created and funded by TTT as a way to oversee direct aid to the working women of Brattleboro. Under the aegis of the BMAA, a district (or public) nursing program to oversee education and treatment was established. The BMAA also oversaw a service providing attendant (or practical) nursing service for working women confined to their homes during a serious illness. For those women simply needing a rest, the BMAA ran a vacation house in Niantic, on the Connecticut shore, from 1910 to 1936. In 1917, responding in part to a nation-wide nursing shortage precipitated by World War I, the BMAA created an attendant nursing school while the hospital maintained a training school for graduate (today known as registered) nurses. In this way, TTT sought to address a potential crisis of care and at the same time provide the opportunity for Brattleboro working women to leave factory work for a more professional (and presumably more lucrative) career. The Influenza epidemic of 1918-19 further emphasized the need for trained health care professionals.
The Trust increased outright aid and began an ambitious insurance program in the mid-1920s, open to all Brattleboro residents regardless of gender, occupation, or need. The Thompson Benefit Association for Nursing Service (1926) and the Thompson Benefit Association for Hospital Service (1927), each for a small yearly premium, provided coverage for home nursing care as well as the costs associated with a hospital stay. These programs, too, were administered by Florence Wells as TTT's local agent. They would eventually be replaced in the 1950s by commercial health insurance offered in the workplace by Vermont Blue Cross/Blue Shield.
The New Deal profoundly altered the work of the Trust as, for example, the Social Security Act became law. By the early 1960s, Florence Wells herself was a patient at Thompson House, TTT's nursing home in Brattleboro. Her care was funded both by the Trust and the Great Society program, Medicare. The Trust continues to exist in both Brattleboro and Rhinebeck and in 2001, celebrated its centennial in both communities.