WHAT IS GIVEN
“Yaddo we are glad to believe has come to be a source of fruitful help & inspiration to many, and especially to those Gifted with Creative power & who have had the impulse to use it for their fellow men. . . . We desire to found here a permanent Home to which shall come from time to time for Rest & Refreshment authors painters sculptors musicians and other artists both men & women few in number and chosen for their Creative Gifts & besides & not less for the power & the will & the purpose to make these Gifts useful to the World.” —Spencer Trask, 1900
At the turn of the century, when Spencer and Katrina Trask founded Yaddo, literary critics were concerned with fostering “creative power”—with creating the conditions necessary for works of genius. The Trasks, who had built their fortune by supporting the expansion of the railways and by investing in Thomas Edison’s experiments with distributing electricity, were aware that the conditions required for creativity were not only intellectual and spiritual, but also material. When tragedy struck—all four of their children were lost to childhood illness—the Trasks determined that after their own deaths, their Saratoga Springs estate would be transformed into a refuge for creative workers. The distinctive name of Yaddo is attributed to the Trasks’ second child, Christina, who is reported to have told her mother, then in mourning over the death of her first child, to “Call it Yaddo, it rhymes with shadow, but it will not be shadow.” Thus, the Enlightenment ideal of knowledge as illumination was inscribed not only in the Trasks’ investments in electricity, but also in the name of their estate. Philanthropist George Foster Peabody, Spencer Trask’s longtime business partner and Katrina’s resolute admirer and second husband, brought the Trasks’ vision to fruition. The Trasks’ gift would foster the gifts of countless artists and writers.