Henrietta E. Francis Talcott

In her 20s, Talcott served as Vice President of the Ladies Christian Union when it was first organized in 1870. When she was 31, she became a charter member of the YWCA,^[3] which was founded in 1873. In 1889, when she was 47, she was one of eleven female trustees who helped launch the creation of a sister college of Columbia.^[4][5] Her fellow female trustees included Frances Fisher Wood, suffragist Annie Nathan Meyer, Laura Spelman Rockefeller, socialite and artist Caroline Dutcher Sterling Choate and Ella Weed, the first dean of the women's institution. Talcott remained a trustee until her death in 1921, aged 79, having serving for 32 years.

Her many large gifts to education and religion included $100,000 to Barnard for the endowment of a chair in Bible study, and $250,000 for the new building of the New York Bible Society at No. 5 West 48th Street which opened in 1921, as a memorial to her husband.^[6] The building still stands today and is the home of the Church of Sweden in New York.

Talcott engaged her daughter Grace and her daughter-in-law Frank in many of her charitable pursuits. She helped found the Bible and Fruit Mission in 1900, serving as its president and Grace was a founding member.^[7] Frank served as treasurer.^[8]