William Madison Wood
Encyclopedia
Lawrence, Massachusetts
Lawrence is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States on the Merrimack River. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city had a total population of 76,377. Surrounding communities include Methuen to the north, Andover to the southwest, and North Andover to the southeast. It and Salem are...
who was considered to be an expert in efficiency. He made a good deal of his fortune through being hired by mill owners to turn around failing mills and was disliked by organized labor.
Early life
William Wood was born in 1858 in a cottage on Pease Point Way, in EdgartownEdgartown, Massachusetts
Edgartown is a town located on Martha's Vineyard in Dukes County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 3,779 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Dukes County. Edgartown has the largest population and area in the entire Dukes County and Martha's Vineyard.- History :In 1642....
, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
, on the island of Martha's Vineyard
Martha's Vineyard
Martha's Vineyard is an island located south of Cape Cod in Massachusetts, known for being an affluent summer colony....
. His parents, Grace (Emma) Wood and William Wood Sr., were Portuguese
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
immigrants from the Azores
Azores
The Archipelago of the Azores is composed of nine volcanic islands situated in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, and is located about west from Lisbon and about east from the east coast of North America. The islands, and their economic exclusion zone, form the Autonomous Region of the...
. His father, William Sr., Guilherme Medeiros Silva was a crewman on a New Bedford
New Bedford, Massachusetts
New Bedford is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States, located south of Boston, southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, and about east of Fall River. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 95,072, making it the sixth-largest city in Massachusetts...
whaling ship from 1853 until his death in 1871. William Jr. was only 12 years old when his father died, and had to drop out of school and find a job to provide for his mother and younger siblings. Fortunately for William Wood, a wealthy New Bedford textile manufacturer named Andrew Pierce offered him a job working in his Wamasutta Cotton Mill. Pierce would soon see that hiring young William would prove to be extremely beneficial. Pierce was impressed with Wood's work and promoted him to the manufacturing department, where he learned cost structures and figures. At the age of eighteen, Wood left New Bedford for Philadelphia. With the help of Andrew Pierce, William was able to find a good job with a Philadelphia brokerage firm. This is where he learned about stocks and bonds. After tiring of Philadelphia, he returned to New Bedford and worked at a bank. According to the Dukes County
Dukes County, Massachusetts
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 14,987 people, 6,421 households, and 3,788 families residing in the county. The population density was 144 people per square mile . There were 14,836 housing units at an average density of 143 per square mile...
Intelligencer, when a Fall River
Fall River, Massachusetts
Fall River is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, in the United States. It is located about south of Boston, southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, and west of New Bedford and south of Taunton. The city's population was 88,857 during the 2010 census, making it the tenth largest city in...
textile company went bankrupt, its new manager hired William as paymaster. Then in 1885, the Washington Mill in Lawrence
Lawrence, Massachusetts
Lawrence is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States on the Merrimack River. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city had a total population of 76,377. Surrounding communities include Methuen to the north, Andover to the southwest, and North Andover to the southeast. It and Salem are...
went bankrupt and was purchased by Frederick Ayer
Frederick Ayer
Frederick Ayer was an American businessman and the younger brother of patent medicine tycoon Dr. James Cook Ayer. He graduated from The Hill School. In addition to his involvement in the patent medicine business, he is better known for his work in the textile industry...
of Lowell
Lowell, Massachusetts
Lowell is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, USA. According to the 2010 census, the city's population was 106,519. It is the fourth largest city in the state. Lowell and Cambridge are the county seats of Middlesex County...
.
American Woolen CompanyAmerican Woolen CompanyThe American Woolen Company was established in 1899 under the leadership of William M. Wood and his father-in-law Frederick Ayer through the consolidation of eight financially troubled New England woolen mills. At the company's height in the 1920s, it owned and operated 60 woolen mills across New...
George S. Patton
George Smith Patton, Jr. was a United States Army officer best known for his leadership while commanding corps and armies as a general during World War II. He was also well known for his eccentricity and controversial outspokenness.Patton was commissioned in the U.S. Army after his graduation from...
). Ellen was well educated; she studied at a finishing school in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and then attended Radcliffe College
Radcliffe College
Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was the coordinate college for Harvard University. It was also one of the Seven Sisters colleges. Radcliffe College conferred joint Harvard-Radcliffe diplomas beginning in 1963 and a formal merger agreement with...
in Cambridge, MA. Wood was determined to make the Washington Mill a success for himself and his newly acquired family. Wood did make the Washington Mill a success and decided to move on to bigger goals. He set out to merge some of the small, struggling mills of New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
into one mammoth money-making company, his company. By 1899, William Wood had convinced seven such mills to join what he called "The Woolen Trust." In April of that same year the company was incorporated under a new name the, "American Woolen Company
American Woolen Company
The American Woolen Company was established in 1899 under the leadership of William M. Wood and his father-in-law Frederick Ayer through the consolidation of eight financially troubled New England woolen mills. At the company's height in the 1920s, it owned and operated 60 woolen mills across New...
." Frederick Ayer bought half of the shares, and Wood purchased the rest. William Wood was remembered as being strong willed and ambitious. He wanted to build and accomplish great things that would make him stand out among the crowd. William Wood, the Portuguese kid from Edgartown, was a multi-millionaire at the age of forty-one. He was determined to expand his company as far as he could. He built some of the largest mill complexes in the world, and became known as the symbol of expansion and profit. Wood brought over fifty inefficient woolen mills into one giant company on personal drive, ambition, skill and hard work.
Lawrence textile strikeLawrence textile strikeThe Lawrence Textile Strike was a strike of immigrant workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1912 led by the Industrial Workers of the World. Prompted by one mill owner's decision to lower wages when a new law shortening the workweek went into effect in January, the strike spread rapidly through the...
In 1912, the Lawrence Mill workers, organized and backed by the union, IWW, went on strikeBread and Roses
The slogan "Bread and Roses" originated in a poem of that name by James Oppenheim, published in The American Magazine in December 1911, which attributed it to "the women in the West." It is commonly associated with a textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts during January-March 1912, now often...
. William Wood was required to shorten the work week for all employees. He did cut the work week from fifty-six hours to fifty-four hours, but he also increased the speed at which the looms ran in order to keep from losing profits. The workers were angry that they were working just as hard and producing just as much as they would in a fifty-six hour week, but only getting paid for fifty-four hours.
During the strike, the police found explosives in three different places along the mills. Meanwhile, Wood settled with the strikers, giving them time and a quarter for overtime and thirty cents more a week to piece-workers. The problem was solved for the moment, but the authorities were looking into the explosives. Eventually, by tracing the serial numbers on the dynamite, the authorities received a confession from the mill contractor, Ernest Pittman. He told them that he and another man, John Breen, had planted the explosives to implicate the IWW. Since they were both employed by William Wood, Wood was indicted for conspiracy to destroy the mills. After a long trial, the grand jury found William Wood not guilty on June 6, 1913.
Later in Life
Moving on with his life, William made big plans for his company's headquarters at Shawsheen Village, Massachusetts. This meant moving from the previous location in Lawrence. The entire project took about five years from 1918 to 1923. Wood transformed a quiet residential community into a self-sufficient neighborhood for his employees; it included industrial, residential and recreational facilities. During those years, the First World War kept the woolen industry alive. Wood was swamped with Army contracts that helped his company grow. By 1924, the company owned sixty mills and employed over 40,000 people. In 1924, William Wood suffered a strokeStroke
A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...
. His doctor advised him to retire and rest. Taking his doctors advice, William Wood retired and named Andrew Pierce Jr. his successor. Pierce Jr. was the son of the man who gave Wood his first job. In January 1926, he and his wife Ellen moved to Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
. On February 2, 1926 William Wood had his chauffeur take him for a drive. Once they were on a deserted road, he got out of the car, walked out of his driver's sight, pulled out his revolver, placed it in his mouth, pulled the trigger, and ended his own life.
After Wood's death, his fortune became the subject of a major U.S. Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
decision on the interpretation
Statutory interpretation
Statutory interpretation is the process by which courts interpret and apply legislation. Some amount of interpretation is always necessary when a case involves a statute. Sometimes the words of a statute have a plain and straightforward meaning. But in many cases, there is some ambiguity or...
of the income tax
Income tax in the United States
In the United States, a tax is imposed on income by the Federal, most states, and many local governments. The income tax is determined by applying a tax rate, which may increase as income increases, to taxable income as defined. Individuals and corporations are directly taxable, and estates and...
laws. In the case of Old Colony Trust Co. v. Commissioner
Old Colony Trust Co. v. Commissioner
Old Colony Trust Co. v. Commissioner, , was an income tax case before the Supreme Court of the United States.HELD:*When a third party purports to pay a person's income tax on his behalf, it must include the amount of the tax payment in the gross income on which it calculates his tax liability,...
, 279 U.S. 716
Case citation
Case citation is the system used in many countries to identify the decisions in past court cases, either in special series of books called reporters or law reports, or in a 'neutral' form which will identify a decision wherever it was reported...
(1929), Chief Justice
Chief Justice of the United States
The Chief Justice of the United States is the head of the United States federal court system and the chief judge of the Supreme Court of the United States. The Chief Justice is one of nine Supreme Court justices; the other eight are the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States...
William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft was the 27th President of the United States and later the tenth Chief Justice of the United States...
held that where a third party (in this case, American Woolen Co.) pays the income tax
Income tax in the United States
In the United States, a tax is imposed on income by the Federal, most states, and many local governments. The income tax is determined by applying a tax rate, which may increase as income increases, to taxable income as defined. Individuals and corporations are directly taxable, and estates and...
owed by an individual, the amount of tax paid constitutes additional taxable income
Taxable income
Taxable income refers to the base upon which an income tax system imposes tax. Generally, it includes some or all items of income and is reduced by expenses and other deductions. The amounts included as income, expenses, and other deductions vary by country or system. Many systems provide that...
to that individual. The executor
Executor
An executor, in the broadest sense, is one who carries something out .-Overview:...
s of his will
Will (law)
A will or testament is a legal declaration by which a person, the testator, names one or more persons to manage his/her estate and provides for the transfer of his/her property at death...
therefore had to pay the back taxes on his estate.
See also
- CuttyhunkCuttyhunkCuttyhunk Island is the outermost of the Elizabeth Islands in Massachusetts. It was the first site of English settlement in New England. It is located between Buzzards Bay to the north and Vineyard Sound to the south...
- Wood and family had two homes on the island now known as Avalon and Winter House.