Thompson, Gertrude Hickman (1877–1950)
Thompson, Gertrude Hickman (1877–1950)
American executive and philanthropist. Name variations: Mrs. William Boyce Thompson. Born Gertrude Hickman in 1877 in Virginia City, Montana; died on August 27, 1950, in Yonkers, New York; married William Boyce Thompson (died June 27, 1930).
Named chair of the board, Magma Arizona Railroad, and director of Newmont Mining Corporation (1930); established the Mrs. William Boyce Thompson Foundation.
Born in 1877 and raised in Montana, Gertrude Hickman married William Boyce Thompson, a wealthy railroad owner and president of the Magma Copper Company. After her husband's death in 1930, Gertrude Thompson was named chair of the board of the Bryce Thompson Institute for Plant Research in Yonkers, New York. She also became chair of the Magma Arizona Railroad and was named a director of her husband's Newmont Mining Corporation. Given control of these vast financial resources, Thompson became a philanthropist. She contributed money to help civilians in France, Belgium, and Italy during World War I, and during World War II established an organization to make and distribute clothing to Allied military personnel. Thompson also founded a clinic in Lille, France, to aid children with tuberculosis. She died about age 73 in Yonkers, New York.
sources:
Read, Phyllis, and Bernard L. Witlieb. The Book of Women's Firsts. NY: Random House, 1992.
Laura York , M.A. in History, University of California, Riverside, California