Crane, Winthrop Murray, Mrs.

Biography

Josephine Porter Boardman Crane, civic leader and patron of the arts, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, Nov. 14, 1873, daughter of William Harvis and Florence (Sheffield) Boardman. Her maternal grandfather was Joseph E. Sheffield, founder of the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale University. Her father was a lawyer. Josephine received her preliminary education at the Cleveland Academy and the Miss Peebles and Miss Thompson's School, New York City. She studied in Berlin, Germany, and at Les Tuches, Fontainebleau, France. She then went to live with her parents in Washington, D.C., and took an active part in the life of the diplomatic and social circles. She was a close friend of Alice Roosevelt Longworth's and often visited on an informal basis at the White House during the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. In 1908 she drew up the constitution for the Congressional Club, the only women's social club ever chartered by an act of the U.S. Congress. She took particular interest in helping young persons and women and after 1908 worked to improve conditions for them in New England paper mills owned by her husband. She was opinionated on the subject of childhood education, and by 1928 her ideas attracted national attention. She apposed ritualistic education and favored allowing children to concentrate on whatever most interested them. Mrs. Crane's educational plan was put into operation in several schools in Massachusetts, and in the Dalton School of New York, which she founded.

The list of Mrs. Crane's social, political and charitable endeavors is long; the following is only a selection. Mrs. Crane was appointed in 1931 as one of the six vice-chairmen of the National Committee of Republican Women for the World Court. In 1933 she was named by Eleanor R. Roosevelt to the national women's committee of the Mobilization for Human Needs. As a joint founder in 1929 of the Museum of Modern Art, NY, she served as a trustee for this museum and for the Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, from 1937 until her death. She was trustee of the Morgan Library, NY, and of the New York Public Library and a founder of the American Opera Society, NY.

Mrs. Crane was married in Manchester, Mass., 16 July 1906, to Winthrop Murray Crane, and had three children: Stephen; Bruce, who married Winnie-Davis Long; and Louise. Winthrop Crane was a U.S. Senator, who died during his second term of office in 1920. He was president of Crane & Co., Inc., of Mass., the stationary firm founded by his father. Josephine Boardman Crane died in Falmouth, Mass., 8 July 1972.

Bibliography

1926

Griffin, Solomon Bukley. W. Murray Crane: A Man and Brother. Boston, 1926.

1972

The New York Times (9 July 1972): 51 [obituary].

1977

National Cyclopedia of American Biography, Clifton, NJ, 1977:57:720

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