Theresa J. Morse
Theresa Jacobson Morse was born in Lawrence, Long Island, New York, in 1909 to Charles Jacobson and Emily Metzger Jacobson, both children of German Jewish immigrants. She attended Woodmere Academy, a school founded in part by her parents’ community, and later studied at Barnard College and Radcliffe College, graduating in 1934. In 1927, she married Alan Morse, who was associated with the United States Trust Company in Boston, and relocated to Cambridge and then Brookline, Massachusetts. During World War II, Morse worked full-time at the regional office of the War Labor Board in wage control, processing cases involving the metal trades and wartime industries. After the war, she became active in the League of Women Voters and was appointed to the Brookline Housing Authority, where she advocated for smaller-scale public housing integrated with social services. She later served in leadership roles with Greater Boston Family Service, the National Family Service Association, the A.C. Ratshesky Foundation, the Hyams Foundation, and Jewish Community Housing for the Elderly. Morse was also active in Temple Israel and various cultural and medical institutions in Boston. She is the mother of three children and grandmother and great-grandmother to a large extended family.
In this February 16, 1993, interview conducted in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Theresa Morse reflects on her upbringing in Lawrence, Long Island, in a German-Jewish family and her adult life in Greater Boston. Born in 1909 to Charles Jacobson and Emily Metzger Jacobson, Morse describes her family’s business and philanthropic background, including the Metzger wholesale meat business and the linen-import firm Campbell, Metzger, and Jacobson. She discusses the founding of Woodmere Academy by members of her parents’ community, her studies at Barnard College and Radcliffe College, and her 1927 marriage to Alan Morse, whose family was associated with the United States Trust Company in Boston. Morse recounts the impact of the 1929 stock market crash on Boston banking and her family, as well as her full-time employment during World War II in the regional office of the War Labor Board, where she processed wage-control cases involving metal trades and war industries. The interview emphasizes her postwar civic leadership in Brookline through the League of Women Voters and her appointment to the Brookline Housing Authority. She describes the establishment of veterans’ housing, debates over large-scale public housing projects such as Columbia Point, and her advocacy for integrating social services into public housing administration. Additional topics include her leadership with Greater Boston Family Service and the National Family Service Association, her work with the A.C. Ratshesky Foundation and the Hyams Foundation, and her involvement with Jewish Community Housing for the Elderly. Morse reflects on Jewish communal life in Brookline, Temple Israel, philanthropy, intergenerational religious practice, and women’s civic engagement in mid-twentieth-century Boston.
The views expressed in these interviews are solely those of the speakers and do not reflect the positions of JWA or its affiliates.
