Thomas Sperry | |
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| Born | Thomas Alexander Sperry July 6, 1864 Knoxville, Tennessee |
| Died | September 2, 1913 (aged 49) New York, New York |
| Occupation | Businessman |
| Spouse | Kate Major (m. 1891) |
| Children | 4 [1] |
| Signature | |
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Thomas Alexander Sperry (July 6, 1864 – September 2, 1913) was the co-founder and the "S" of S&H Green Stamps, together with Shelley Byron Hutchinson of Ypsilanti, Michigan.
Thomas Alexander Sperry was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, on July 6, 1864. He married Kate Major on January 1, 1891. [2]
Sperry's son, also named Thomas, was born in Cranford, New Jersey, in 1898. [3] Sperry also had one other son, Stuart Major, and two daughters, Marjorie and Katherine. [1]
Sperry Sr.'s home in Cranford was destroyed by a fire in 1912, with the fire causing an estimated $150,000 in damages, including the loss of a number of paintings — many from the Charles W. Morse gallery. Sperry's horse trainer and chauffeur were able to rescue several paintings from the house's music room before they were stopped by flames, including an oil painting of Sperry's son on the horse on which he had won a ribbon the previous day at the Plainfield Horse Show. After a firefighter threw down a painting of Sperry's wife in her wedding gown, Mrs. Sperry was quoted as calling out "Don't save that! Save something worth while." [4]
Sperry died in New York City at the age of 49 years on September 2, 1913, of ptomaine poisoning contracted during the return voyage after a two-month trip to Europe. Sperry was brought ashore in a stretcher and his condition was too bad to travel to his home in Cranford. [5]
Katherine Sperry married Walter Beinecke in 1917. His niece, Carrie Sperry, had married Walter's brother, Frederick Beinecke, in 1912. Their son is William Sperry Beinecke. The family donated land in Cranford to the Rahway River Parkway along the Rahway River. [6] [7] [8] Thomas Sperry was involved with real estate businesses and died in Palm Beach, Florida, in 1973. [3] Marjorie Sperry settled in Middletown Township, New Jersey, purchasing the former estate and gardens of mobster Vito Genovese and rehabilitated it, later donating it to the Monmouth County Park System to create Deep Cut Gardens. [9]
Together with Hutchinson, Sperry founded the Sperry and Hutchinson Company in 1896. [3] Sperry and Hutchinson started their business in Michigan and became what The New York Times described as "the first independent trading stamp company to distribute stamps and books to merchants". The stamps gained popularity during the early 1900s as the S&H program offered incentives to shoppers, rewarding them for making timely payments in cash, helping to maintain customer loyalty to participating merchants. [10]
S&H Green Stamps had peak popularity during the 1960s; a significant percentage of supermarkets and gasoline stations gave the stamps to customers with their purchases. The firm had 800 redemption centers nationwide where stamps were traded for products. For a period in the 1960s, the firm was printing more stamps annually than the United States Postal Service. [10]
In 1921, Hutchinson sued the estate of Thomas A. Sperry in court in Trenton, New Jersey, alleging that Sperry had defrauded Hutchinson of part of his shares in the company, allowing William Miller Sperry, brother of the founder, to gain control of the firm. Hutchinson alleged that he had been cheated out of $5 million as a result of secret dividends that diverted company funds to Sperry. [11]
Cranford is a township in Union County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, located 18 miles (29 km) southwest of Manhattan. As of the 2020 United States census, the township's population was 23,847, an increase of 1,222 (+5.4%) from the 2010 census count of 22,625, which in turn reflected an increase of 47 (+0.2%) from the 22,578 counted in the 2000 census.
Union County is a county in the northern part of the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the county was the state's seventh-most-populous county with a population of 575,345, its highest decennial count ever and an increase of 38,846 (+7.2%) from the 2010 census count of 536,499. Its county seat is Elizabeth, which is also the most populous municipality in the county, with a 2020 census population of 137,298, and the largest by area, covering 13.46 square miles (34.9 km2). The county serves as a transition point between the Central Jersey and North Jersey regions of the state.
Trading stamps were small paper stamps given to customers by merchants in loyalty programs in the United States, Canada and the U.K. which predated the modern loyalty card-based and online programs. Like the similarly-issued retailer coupons, these stamps only had a minimal cash value of a few mils individually, but when a customer accumulated a number of them, they could be exchanged with the trading stamp company for premiums, such as toys, personal items, housewares, furniture and appliances. In trading stamp programs in Hong Kong continued to operate.
Sperry may refer to:
The Rahway River is a river in Essex, Middlesex, and Union Counties, New Jersey, United States, The Rahway, along with the Elizabeth River, Piles Creek, Passaic River, Morses Creek, and the Fresh Kills River, has its river mouth at the Arthur Kill.
The United New Jersey Railroad and Canal Company (UNJ&CC) was a United States–based railroad company established in 1872. It was formed by the consolidation of three existing companies: the Camden and Amboy Railroad, Delaware and Raritan Canal Company, and New Jersey Rail Road and Transportation Company. The Camden and Amboy and New Jersey Rail Road were among the earliest North American railroads. The Pennsylvania Railroad leased the United New Jersey Railroad and Canal Company in 1872.
S&H Green Stamps was a line of trading stamps popular in the United States from 1896 until the late 1980s. They were distributed as part of a rewards program operated by the Sperry & Hutchinson company (S&H), founded in 1896 by Thomas Sperry and Shelley Byron Hutchinson. During the 1960s, the company issued more stamps than the U.S. Postal Service, and distributed 35 million catalogs a year. Customers received stamps at the checkout counters of supermarkets, department stores, and gasoline stations among other retailers, which could then be redeemed for products from the catalog. Top Value Stamps ceased operations in the early 1980s, after which S&H would accept savings books for those left with unredeemed Top Value books, before S&H itself also ceased business.
The Rahway Valley Railroad (RVRR) was a short-line railroad in the Northeastern United States which connected the Lehigh Valley Railroad in Roselle Park and the Central Railroad of New Jersey in Cranford with the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western in Summit. Operating over a span of 95 years from 1897 until 1992 in Union County, New Jersey, in its prime it was one of the most successful short line railroads in U.S. history, turning a profit during the Great Depression.
The Cranford Township Public Schools is a comprehensive public school district serving students in pre-Kindergarten through twelfth grade in Cranford in Union County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The district is governed by a nine-member elected board of education.
Frank Edward Boland, James Paul Boland and Joseph John Boland were early aircraft designers from Rahway, New Jersey who started the Boland Airplane and Motor Company.
Robert Ferro was an American novelist whose semi-autobiographical fiction explored the uneasy integration of homosexuality and traditional American upper middle class values.
Cranford, New Jersey is home to a diverse number of historic architectural styles, historically significant buildings, and landmarks. Structures dating from 1740 through the present can be found in a relatively small area of the township.
Echo Lake Country Club is a private, member-owned country club located in Westfield, New Jersey. The club was founded in 1899, and the golf course was designed by Donald Ross in 1913.
William Miller Sperry (1858–1927) is the namesake of the William Miller Sperry Observatory in Cranford, New Jersey. According to his sworn passport application, he was born on September 14, 1858, in Bristol, Tennessee. He moved to Cranford in 1898 and succeeded his brother Thomas Sperry as president of S&H Green Stamps. Buried in Fairview Cemetery, Sperry was the donor behind Sperry Park bordering the Rahway River in Cranford. The site is also part of the Rahway River Parkway, a greenway of the Union County Department of Parks and Recreation Sperry's great-granddaughter, Frances Beinecke, is an environmentalist and the former president of Natural Resources Defense Council, and his grandson is William Sperry Beinecke.
William Sperry Beinecke was an American philanthropist and businessman.
General George Washington at Trenton is a large full-length portrait in oil painted in 1792 by the American artist John Trumbull of General George Washington at Trenton, New Jersey, on the night of January 2, 1777, during the American Revolutionary War. This is the night after the Battle of the Assunpink Creek, also known as the Second Battle of Trenton, and before the decisive victory at the Battle of Princeton the next day. The artist considered this portrait "the best certainly of those which I painted." The portrait is on view at the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut, an 1806 gift of the Society of the Cincinnati in Connecticut. It was commissioned by the city of Charleston, South Carolina, but was rejected by the city, resulting in Trumbull painting another version.
George Washington French Gaunt was an American farmer and politician from New Jersey.
John Webley Slocum was an American lawyer, politician, and judge from New Jersey.