Upon our return to Bangkok from Ayutthuya this afternoon, we asked the taxi driver to take us to the Jim Thompson House Museum. We ate lunch there in one of the cafes before taking our tour of the house. The cafe was modern and the food delicious!
“Jim Thompson became one of the most famous Americans living in Asia. Time magazine claimed “he almost single-handedly saved Thailand’s vital silk industry from extinction.” Jim Thompson was born into a family of means. His father was a wealthy textile manufacturer in Delaware. Jim graduated from Princeton in 1928. He represented the US at the 1928 Olympics, competing in sailing. He practiced architecture with a New York firm. In 1941, he quit his job and joined the US Marines, and then the OSS, forerunner of the CIA. After the war, he became a silk merchant and antique collector. The pinnacle of his architectural achievement was the construction of his new home in Bangkok, assembled from several old country houses he collected, and then building six Thai dwellings on his property.”
During the same time, 1950’s and 60’s, Jim Thompson focused on hand-woven Thai silk. He rounded up 200 hand weavers and supplied them with raw silk and dyes to turn out finished products on their crude home looms in their homes. The silks became popular and the business expanded quickly. Thompson disappeared in 1967, while on a trip with friends in Malaysia. He was never found. His company, a Thai enterprise, survives today.”
