Thomas Jefferson Coolidge

Background

Thomas Jefferson Coolidge was born on September 17, 1893 in Manchester, Massachussets, United States. He was the son of Thomas Jefferson Coolidge and Clara Amory.

Education

He attended St. Mark's School in Southborough, Massachussets, and Harvard College, from which he was graduated with the Bachelor's degree in 1915 magna cum laude in mathematics.

Career

In November 1914 he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa shortly after he had run ninety-eight yards for a Harvard touchdown in the first Harvard-Yale game to be played in the Yale Bowl.

In 1916 Coolidge served for a few months on the Mexican border as a sergeant. When the United States entered the war, he was transferred to the Plattsburgh, New York, Training Camp and commissioned captain. He served in France as battery commander and regimental adjutant in the 302nd Field Artillery and was promoted to major. After returning to Boston, he joined the Old Colony Trust Company (founded by his father in 1890 and merged in 1929 with the First National Bank of Boston), of which he became chairman of the trust committee in 1940.

In 1921 Coolidge became a trustee of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts; when he was elected president of the board in 1925 he was the youngest ever to hold that office. During his nine-year administration a wing for European decorative arts was added and a new building constructed for the museum school. He was averse, however, particularly during the Great Depression, to making further additions to the plant, for he was more concerned with improving the quality of the collections than adding to the number of exhibits.

Coolidge was called to Washington in March 1934 as special assistant in charge of fiscal affairs to Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr. In October of that year, when he became undersecretary of the treasury, he resigned as president of the Museum of Fine Arts. His mastery of foreign exchange, reserves, refunding operations, and the like made him invaluable in that post, but he was not happy with the New Deal and resigned fifteen months later.

Despite his disagreements with the New Deal, in October 1937 Coolidge was appointed United States representative on the financial committee of the League of Nations by Secretary of State Cordell Hull. A decade later he was named chairman of the Committee on Federal-State Relations of the Hoover Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government. Coolidge served as an overseer of Harvard from 1926 to 1932.

In 1958 he gave the Massachusetts Historical Society 282 manuscripts to be added to the Thomas Jefferson Papers that his grandfather had given in 1898.

Achievements

• He was chairman of the board of the United Fruit Company, a director and member of the executive committee of the Boston Edison Company, and a director of the First National Bank of Boston and the New England Mutual Life Insurance Company. He was a trustee of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and of the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, to which he gave $1 million shortly before his death, with the request that it be kept anonymous.

Politics

"In political beliefs I am a very old-fashioned liberal, not recognized today, who believes that government powers should not be centralized in Washington and that the country will be happier, more prosperous and will better retain its democratic form of government if the individual affairs of the citizens are managed locally under State laws with the Federal government handling the foreign affairs with wisdom. "

Personality

Some of Coolidge's friends would have categorized him as an "arch conservative" rather than an "old-fashioned liberal".

Although tall and extremely handsome, Coolidge was modest and shy. He did not say much unless he fell into discussing a subject on which he had strong opinions.

Quotes from others about the person

• "He was a rock of basic constitutional principles as Jefferson conceived them to be in the structure of this Republic. His integrity was flawless; his moral and physical courage unwavering; his personal loyalties discriminating but abiding; his charm and humor as exceptional as his good looks; his intelligence high, his capacity great for any task he assumed; and his companionship a source of joy to those privileged to have it. Moreover, he had the rare quality of objective self-analysis, the more unusual because his prejudices were strong. In me he inspired one of the greatest affections and admirations I have ever felt for anyone. " (Arthur Krock)

Connections

On August 20, 1927, Coolidge married Catherine Hill Kuhn of San Mateo, California. They had three children.

Father:

Thomas Jefferson Coolidge

Mother:

Clara Amory

Spouse:

Catherine Hill Kuhn