Appleget, Thomas B.

Thomas Baird Appleget (1893-1982), vice-president of the University from 1949 to 1959, was born in Hightstown, New Jersey, on January 16, 1893. After graduation from high school in 1910 he worked for three years as a clerk, and entered Brown in 1913. The day after his graduation in 1917 he was appointed executive secretary to President Faunce. After a year in the Army in 1918, he returned to the job, which included managing the Brown Loyalty Fund, alumni and public relations, and student recruitment. In 1925 his title was changed to Assistant to the President. In 1926 he left Brown to become executive secretary to John D. Rockefeller, Jr. 1897. His responsibility was to handle Mr. Rockefeller’s routine philanthropies, but also included special assignments. One such assignment involved Appleget’s being flown by Charles Lindbergh in an open cockpit army biplane during a snowstorm on an emergency mission to deliver serum from the Rockefeller Institute in an unsuccessful attempt to save the life of Floyd Bennett, who was in a Quebec hospital with pneumonia. In 1929 Appleget became vice-president of the Rockefeller Foundation. In 1949 he was appointed vice-president of the University, with responsibility for alumni and public relations and fund raising. He resigned in 1959. His outside activities had included being vice-president of Community Research Associates, the YMCA, and the Hope Club. He said once, “I have a predilection for vice-presidencies.” He died in Greenwich, Connecticut, on October 21, 1982.