The term “brain trust” refers to a group of close advisers, originally used in politics. It was first coined in 1899 by an Ohio newspaper and later applied to FDR’s group of advisers during his presidential campaign. Other presidents, such as Wilson and Jackson, also had advisory groups, known as “The Inquiry” and “Kitchen Cabinet,” respectively. Think tanks can also be considered a form of brain trust in various fields.
Brain trust is a term used to describe a group of close advisers, almost synonymous with kitchen cabinet and think tank. All of these terms have their origins in political history – Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) had a brain trust, Andrew Jackson a kitchen cabinet – but they have also been used to refer to a team of advisers in any context. Think tanks, for example, can be political organizations that brainstorm and conduct research, but they are also used in science and technology research as well as various other fields.
The term brain trust originated in 1899, when the United States was politically focused on trust-busting, what the government called its efforts to break illegal monopolies. The Marion Daily Star, an Ohio newspaper, coined the term brain trust in one of its articles, asking, “Since everything else tends to trust, why not a brain trust?… Our various and varied stocks of gray matter could also be controlled by a central union”.
The term was not applied to any advisory team, however, until FDR ran for president in 1932. FDR had been inspired by Woodrow Wilson to assemble a select group of intellectual minds to advise him on public policy. Wilson had, in 1917, formed a group of advisers, dubbed The Inquiry, to advise him on peace negotiations towards the end of World War I.
Following Wilson’s lead, FDR formed a close-knit group of advisers to assist him during the presidential campaign, masterminds who would help the new president create much of what would become the New Deal. A New York Times reporter, James Kieran, was the first to dub FDR’s team a “Brains Trust.” When the term was adopted nationwide, it was shortened to brain trust. The advisory team consisted primarily of Adolph A. Berle, Jr., Raymond Moley, and Rexford Guy Tugwell, three Columbia University professors. After becoming president, FDR drew from a larger pool of advisers who continued to help him shape public policy.
Roosevelt’s advisers may have been the first team to be called a brain trust, but it wasn’t the first group of presidential advisers. There was Wilson’s advisory group, The Inquiry, but there were other top presidential advisers as well. Andrew Jackson used a group of unofficial presidential advisers, who were dubbed the Kitchen Cabinet. Jackson used his advisors, made up of journalists and personal friends, to help him on a variety of issues. The term is a play on the president’s official group of advisers, called the Cabinet, and was coined by Jackson’s political enemies in an attempt to vilify his presidency.
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