Seventy Years Of The Worcester Polytechnic Institute: Page 358

The Institute learned in 1936 that it would eventually receive two large increments of endowment. One was the $100,000 bequest of Frank 0. Whitney, '71, who at the time of his death, May 14, 1936, was the oldest member of the first graduating class. Life use of the income was given to two of Mr. Whitney's relatives. The other bequest, also of $100,000, was contained in the will of Mrs. Florence S. Thayer, of Worcester, widow of Edward D. Thayer, wealthy woolen manufacturer.

At the end of the 1936 fiscal year of the college, the total endowment was $3,682,539, a gain of $1,145,763 during eleven years of President Earle's administration. This total included a reserve fund of $234,000, of which $42,000 was from extra dividends, about $85,000 from surplus income of the Washburn Shops, and about $24,000 from operating surplus, both of the latter items having been added during the prosperous years before the depression. The distribution of the endowment was:

for general purposes		$1,050,102
for sustaining scholarships	450,000
for designated purposes		1,050,387
1920 endowment fund		897,728
reserve funds			234,322

Each year from 1931 on produced changes in membership of the Corporation, though a number of term members, on alumni nomination, were reelected. In 1932, Conrad N. Lauer of Philadelphia, then president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, was added, and George W. Smith, Jr., '15, was selected to serve the unexpired term of Harry P. Davis, '90. Reelected at this time were Samuel M. Stone, and Charles E. Eveleth, '99, both members of the Board since 1927. The latter served less than a year of this term, for he died March 25, 1933, at the age of fifty-six, an untimely death at the height of a brilliant career. Another change in the Board was produced in 1932 by the mayoralty victory of John C. Mahoney over Michael J. O'Hara. Mayor Mahoney was a trustee until

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Last Modified: Fri Jul 30 11:15:25 EDT 1999