Papers of Anna Boynton Thompson, 1834-1895

Anna Boynton Thompson, teacher and student of philosophy, was born on September 10, 1848, in Portland, Maine, the daughter of Harriot Boynton (Sawyer) and William A. Thompson. Her earliest years were spent in Iowa and Illinois. Following the accidental death of her father, the family returned East. Her mother ran a boarding house in Boston for school teachers while Thompson and her sister Mary Frances attended Boston Girls High School. They were sent by their mother to study in Europe (1871) and then began their teaching careers: Mary Frances Thompson taught science at Edward Everett High School in Dorchester and Anna Boynton Thompson was an influential teacher of Greek and History at Thayer Academy, Braintree, Massachusetts, until her retirement in 1920.

Both sisters studied at Radcliffe: Mary Frances was a non-graduate (1885-1886, 1890-1891); Anna studied between 1884-1902 taking between one and three courses a year. She completed her admission requirements in 1896 and received her A.B. (1898) and A.M. (1899). She continued to do graduate work with Josiah Royce, 1899-1902. She was awarded an honorary D. Lit from Tufts (1902). Her Unity in Fichte's System (1895) was published in the Radcliffe College Monograph Series.

Anna was a significant donor to Thayer Academy and both Anna and her sister were generous donors to Radcliffe College. They left their mother's legacy and their own estates to Radcliffe which, in 1958, used them to construct a wing of the Cronkhite Graduate Center named for Harriot Boynton Thompson. Anna died in 1923, her sister Mary Frances in 1933.

For details about the bequest see Wilbur Jordan's files and Judith Coquillette, "Through Money Power Grows: Philanthropy and Radcliffe College 1894-1928."