William Sloane Coffin Sr. (April15, 1879December16, 1933) was an American businessman. He was a director, and later vice-president of W. & J. Sloane Company, his family's business, which was founded by his grandfather, William Sloane, from

Kilmarnock, Scotland Kilmarnock (, sco, Kilmaurnock; gd, Cill Mheàrnaig (IPA: ʰʲɪʎˈveaːɾnəkʲ, "Marnock's church") is a large town and former burgh in East Ayrshire, Scotland and is the administrative centre of East Ayrshire Council. With a population ...

. He became president of the

board of trustees A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...

of the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, and founded the Hearth and Home Corporation to provide housing in downtown

Manhattan, New York City Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the List of co ...

. p.141NYCLPC MacDougal-Sullivan Gardens Historic District Designation Report"
/ref>

Early life

Coffin was born on April 15, 1879, in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

, New York City to Edmund Coffin Jr. and Euphemia Sloane. His brother was

Henry Sloane Coffin Henry Sloane Coffin (January 5, 1877, in New York City – November 25, 1954, in Lakeville, Connecticut) was president of the Union Theological Seminary, Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, and one of the mos ...

. He graduated from

Yale College Yale College is the undergraduate college of Yale University. Founded in 1701, it is the original school of the university. Although other Yale schools were founded as early as 1810, all of Yale was officially known as Yale College until 1887, ...

with a BA in 1900 and an MA in 1904.

Career

Coffin was a director of the family's furniture and rug business, W. & J. Sloane Company, and later its vice-president. p.50 He was elected a trustee of the

in 1924, and in 1931 became president of the board of trustees. W. & J. Sloane acquired the California Furniture Company, and in 1925 Coffin created a subsidiary, the Company of Master Craftsmen, to make

Colonial Revival The Colonial Revival architectural style seeks to revive elements of American colonial architecture. The beginnings of the Colonial Revival style are often attributed to the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, which reawakened Americans to the archi ...

furniture in a factory in

Flushing, Queens Flushing is a neighborhood in the north-central portion of the New York City borough of Queens. The neighborhood is the fourth-largest central business district in New York City. Downtown Flushing is a major commercial and retail area, and the ...

."Master Craftsmen Table"
''Kovels'' (January 5, 2011) Sloane was heavily involved in manufacturing and selling this style, and had another subsidiary, the Oneidacraft Company in

Oneida, New York Oneida (, one, kanaˀalóhaleˀ) is a city in Madison County located west of Oneida Castle (in Oneida County) and east of Wampsville, New York, United States. The population was 11,390 at the 2010 census. The city, like both Oneida County an ...

, which made it as well.Albrecht, Donald
''The American Style: Colonial Revival and the Modern Metropolis''

Museum of the City of New York A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these i ...

, 2011. p.140. Coffin was involved in purchasing real estate properties from Trinity Church and redeveloping them. These houses are now located in the Charlton-King-Vandam Historic District. He founded the Hearth and Home Corporation, of which he was president, in order to renovate older buildings near downtown

to provide housing for middle-class New Yorkers, which Coffin saw as a solution to the "apartment house problem" of the late 1910s and early 1920s. In 1920, Hearth and Home purchased the entire block of mid-19th century

row houses In architecture and city planning, a terrace or terraced house ( UK) or townhouse ( US) is a form of medium-density housing that originated in Europe in the 16th century, whereby a row of attached dwellings share side walls. In the United State ...

bounded by

MacDougal Macdougal, foaled 1953, was a New Zealand thoroughbred racehorse. In November 1959 he won the Melbourne Cup at Flemington Racecourse. He was ridden by Pat Glennon and carried a weight of 8-11 (123 pounds). Macdougal started at odds of 8/1 in ...

, Sullivan, West Houston and Bleecker Streets and renovated those on MacDougal and Sullivan into spacious apartments, with the backyards of the buildings connected to form a common garden. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' said about the project on January 30, 1921, that " offin'sdevelopment made a real contribution to the solution of the housing problem and is an excellent example of what can be done to other properties in the city, and the rehabilitation of homey old buildings." The buildings were sold to individual owners in 1924, but with covenants guaranteeing aesthetic continuity and no future redevelopment of the site. These houses now make up the MacDougal-Sullivan Gardens Historic District.

Personal life

On September 14, 1920, he married Catherine Butterfield in

Barnstable, Massachusetts The Town of Barnstable ( ) is a town in the U.S. state of Massachusetts and the county seat of Barnstable County. Barnstable is the largest community, both in land area and population, on Cape Cod, and is one of thirteen Massachusetts municipaliti ...

. Together, they had a son: * William Sloane Coffin Jr. (1924–2006), who became a clergyman and a noted

peace activist A peace movement is a social movement which seeks to achieve ideals, such as the ending of a particular war (or wars) or minimizing inter-human violence in a particular place or situation. They are often linked to the goal of achieving world peac ...

. Coffin died on December 16, 1933, at his home in

from a

coronary thrombosis Coronary thrombosis is defined as the formation of a blood clot inside a blood vessel of the heart. This blood clot may then restrict blood flow within the heart, leading to heart tissue damage, or a myocardial infarction, also known as a heart at ...

References

External links

William Sloane Coffin, Sr. papers
at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

William Sloane Coffin Sr. portrait
at the

{{DEFAULTSORT:Coffin, William Sloane Sr. Yale College alumni Presidents of the Metropolitan Museum of Art 1879 births 1933 deaths Burials at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery American merchants People from Manhattan

Early life

Career

Personal life

See also

References

External links