The Thomas H. White Foundation was established in 1913 in Cleveland, Ohio, as the Thomas H. White Trust. The trust was the result of the estate of Cleveland industrialist Thomas H. White (1836-1914), who founded White Sewing Machine Corporation in 1876. Within ten years of its founding, the company was one of the leading manufacturers and distributors of sewing machines in the United States. White served on Cleveland city council from 1875-1876 and was active in Cleveland's philanthropic and charitable community. Thomas H. White married Almira Greenleaf in 1858 and the couple had eight children: Windsor, Clarence, Rollin, Walter, Ella, Maud, and Mabel.
When it was established, the Thomas H. White Trust devoted half of the income earned by its assets to charitable giving. Income earned on the other half of the assets was used to support the children of the four sons of Thomas H. White. Twenty-one years after the death of the last survivor of Thomas White's sons, all of the assets and income were turned over to the charitable arm of the trust. The last surviving son of Thomas White, Rollin H. White, Sr., died in 1962, and all of the assets and income were made available for charitable purposes in 1983.
The Thomas H. White Foundation began to disburse gifts in 1939, concentrating on education, scientific research, care for sick and aged, and recreation for the benefit of residents of the Cleveland, Ohio. The foundation has supported scholarship funds, cultural organizations that provide educational programs, and social welfare organizations. Grants for pre-school, vocational training, student retention, and programs to promote science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) curricula have also been supported.
Thomas Howard White (1836-1914), founder of the White Sewing Machine Company, the White Motor Company of Cleveland, Ohio, and the Thomas H. White Foundation, was born April 26, 1836, at Phillipston, Massachusetts, the eighth generation of the White family in the United States. The first generation Thomas White was born in England ca.1600, and immigrated to Massachusetts ca. 1638. Thomas Howard White, the son of Betsy Pierce and Windsor White, grew up in Templeton, Massachusetts, during difficult economic times after the Panic of 1837. He was the oldest in a family of eight children; his father was declared an insolvent debtor more than once. His earliest jobs were in the chair factories of the family's struggling business. In 1858 he married Almira Louisa Greenleaf. In 1862 he began to experiment with, improve and manufacture sewing machines, moving to Orange, Massachusetts, and joining in business with George W. Baker and Rollin C. White (no relation).
Thomas H. White moved his business to Cleveland in the fall of 1867 where he continued to manufacture sewing machines and other goods. In 1876 he and his half-brother Howard W. White and Rollin C. White incorporated the White Sewing Machine Company which proved a very successful and profitable business. In 1899 his son Rollin Henry White designed the White steam car which was put into production by the White Sewing Machine Company in 1900. In 1906 the automobile division was separated from the Sewing Machine Company as the White Company, later the White Motor Company. The first White gasoline vehicles were produced in 1909, and in 1911 the manufacture of steam vehicles was halted. It was in 1918 that the company dropped the passenger car line and very successfully specialized in producing trucks and buses. Thomas H. White died prior to this, on June 22, 1914.
Thomas Howard and Almira Greenleaf White had eight children. The first died at the age of two. The second, Mabel Almira, born June 9, 1861, married James Armstrong Harris, "The Orange King," Florida grower of citrus fruit, in 1885. She moved to Florida, had one son and died there of a fever in 1888. Alice Maud, known as Maud, born March 14, 1864, married William Joseph Hammer, inventor, in 1894, moved to New York City, had one daughter and died there in 1906 of tuberculosis. Windsor Thomas, born August 28, 1866, became vice president of White Sewing Machine Company and president of White Motor Company. He married Delia Bulkeley Holden, daughter of Liberty Holden, in 1892, had three children, and died in Florida in 1958. Clarence Greenleaf, born March 19, 1869, followed a career in agriculture. He established growing Irish potatoes as a cash crop in northern Florida, raised pineapples in Hawaii, and in 1916 settled in Redlands, California, where he was a civic leader and horticulturist, breeding hybrid irises. He married Florence Rumley Fisk in 1905, had four children and died at Redlands in 1957.
Rollin Henry, born July 11, 1872, designed a steam car in 1899, became first vice president of the White Company in 1906 and created the first White internal combustion truck in 1910. After illness and recuperation, he left the White Company in 1914 and worked on the invention of a crawler tractor. He formed the Cleveland Motor Plow Company in 1916, which was incorporated as Cleveland Tractor Company in 1917 and took the trade name Cletrac in 1918. From 1922 to1925 he designed and manufactured a smaller, less expensive car called the Rollin and incorporated the Rollin Motor Company, but it was not a commercial success. He married Katharine Elizabeth King in 1896, had three children and died in Florida in 1962. The seventh child, Walter Charles, born September 8, 1876, was sales representative for the original White steam car in London, England, in 1901. He participated in races and rallies and sold a White touring car to the Prince of Wales. In 1904 he became the American sales manager for White cars and in 1903, the second vice president and sales manager for the White Company. He publicized White cars and trucks by winning many races, performing relief aid after the San Francisco earthquake (1906), participating in U.S. Army military maneuvers and becoming the chairman of a committee to coordinate motor transportation in France during WWI. In 1921 he became president of the White Motor Company. In 1919 he married Mary Virginia Saunders. They had seven children, two of whom died in infancy. He died in Cleveland as a result of injuries from an automobile accident in 1929.
Ella Almira was the eighth child, born January 9, 1883. In 1908 she married Horatio Ford, director and assistant vice-president of the Cleveland Trust Company and an attorney with the firm of Ford, Reece, Baskin and Howland. Ella was an active genealogist who spent a lifetime researching the history of her own and her husband's families. She wrote
The Thomas H. White Foundation Records, 1939-2011, consist of agendas, correspondence, financial documents, lists, memoranda, grant proposals with attachments, and reports.
This collection will be useful to researchers studying the history of philanthropy and charity in Cleveland and northeast Ohio during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, particularly from 1993-2011. Those studying the evolution of funding priorities of the Thomas H. White Foundation from the 1930s-2011 and the changing landscape of educational and social service organizations in Cleveland during this time period will find this collection particularly useful.
This collection documents programs for women, children, and youth, in Cleveland and northeast Ohio. The foundation supported domestic violence programs, employment opportunities for youth, employment training for adults, and educational programming provided by performing, visual arts, and cultural organizations. The foundation also supported tutoring and after school programs, athletic programs for youth, and the development of public parks and park programs.
More broadly, the foundation supported housing and shelter programs for families, programs to alleviate hunger and food insecurity, and programs that promoted healthy communities. The foundation sought out opportunities to support religious organizations that provided social services and educational programs.
The collection is arranged in three series.
The researcher should also consult MS 4725 Thomas H. White Family Papers Collected by Betty King; PG 471 Thomas H. White Family Photographs; and MS 4724 Rollin H. White and Walter C. White Papers.
Processed by Margaret Burzynski-Bays in 2015.
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[Container ___, Folder ___ ] MS 5310 Thomas H. White Foundation Records, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio
Gifts of the Thomas H. White Foundation in 2001-2012.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.