[5] According to family records, his paternal ancestors were early pioneers of Selbyville, Delaware, dating as far back as the late 1700s.

[6][7] Family records state that several generations of McCabe's mother's maternal and paternal ancestors were early settlers of Maryland and Delaware, on the Delmarva Peninsula.

[8] McCabe attended preparatory school at Wilmington Conference Academy (now called Wesley College) in Dover, Delaware, from 1907 to 1910.

[10] In addition, he held honorary doctoral degrees from 15 colleges and universities[11] In 1916 McCabe joined Scott Paper as a $15-a-week salesman[2][12] when he was 23 years old.

[9] By the late 1940s, McCabe was described as having shown "an advanced and enlightened policy that made the company a recognized standard for modern manufacturing and sales operations".

He urged a cut in the federal debt as a step that should precede tax reduction, and he leaned toward a policy of credit contraction and saving as primary means of curtailing the inflation spiral.

[4] In 1948, two years after McCabe had returned to Scott, President Harry Truman appointed him to be the 8th Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.

[4] When a dispute arose between the Federal Reserve and the US Treasury over interest rate policy and credit restraint in 1949–50, McCabe participated in the committee Truman created to hammer out a compromise.

His leadership was instrumental in establishing a firm opposition to the restrictive rate pegging policies that were being imposed on the Fed by the Treasury.

They created a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization, governed by a board of trustees whose members included presidents of IBM, B.F. Goodrich, Chairman of G.E., a governor, U.S.

[18] The National McCabe Scholarship places emphasis on ability, character, personality, leadership, and service to school and community.

[20] The Thomas B. McCabe Lecture Series at Swarthmore College is an annual event that brings individuals with distinguished careers in varied fields to speak on campus.

[21] The McCabe Library houses media items supporting the Humanities and Social Sciences, and facilitates access to a collection of over 500,000 ebooks, thousands of online journals, and a growing numbers of digital films.