Winthrop Murray Crane Photographs ca. 1865-1950 Guide to the Photograph Collection Sponsored by the Louise Crane Foundation.

Table of Contents Collection Summary Biographical Sketch Collection Description Related Materials Acquisition Information Organization Detailed Description of the Collection Preferred Citation Access Terms

Collection Summary

Biographical Sketch

Winthrop Murray Crane was a U.S. politician and businessman who served as lieutenant governor and governor of Massachusetts and United States senator from Massachusetts. He was a mentor to President Calvin Coolidge and held close friendships with many prominent political figures, including Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft, and Henry Cabot Lodge. Although he worked better behind the scenes, he was well-loved in Massachusetts, winning six elections without making a single speech.

Born 23 April 1853 in Dalton, Mass., Crane was the son of Zenas Marshall Crane, a paper manufacturer and owner of Crane and Company, and Louise Fanny Laflin. He attended public schools in Dalton, the Wesleyan Academy (later Wilbraham Academy) in Wilbraham, Mass., and the Williston Seminary in Easthampton, Mass.

In 1870 he left school to work as a rag picker in one of the Crane and Company paper mills. Trying to learn all aspects of his family's business, he worked his way up to sales in the late 1870s and then to management in the early 1880s. In 1880, he married Mary Benner, who died in 1884 giving birth to their only child, Winthrop Murray Crane II. After his father's death in 1887, Crane took over the family finances, increasing the family's wealth by investing in enterprises such as American Telephone and Telegraph Company, Boston Albany Railroads, Otis Elevator Company, and Western Union.

Crane entered politics by serving on the Republican National Committee in 1892 (he subsequently served on the committee in 1896, 1904, and 1908). He was elected lieutenant governor in 1896, and was then re-elected in 1897 and 1898. In 1899, he was elected governor of Massachusetts and served a 3-year term from 1899-1903. In 1902, Crane became nationally recognized when he settled a three-day Teamsters strike by convening meetings with both sides and mediating a settlement agreement in two hours. Because of his success with the Teamsters, President Roosevelt recruited Crane to mediate an agreement during the long drawn-out anthracite coal strike. Crane was successful and an agreement was reached.

Over the next several years Crane was offered several positions in the Roosevelt administration, including secretary of the Treasury in 1902, but he did not accept any of the appointments until George Frisbee Hoar's seat in the U.S. Senate became available upon his death in 1904. He accepted the appointment to the Senate from John L. Bates, then governor of Massachusetts and a friend, and was subsequently re-elected to a full term in 1907. He served in the Senate until his resignation in 1913.

In 1906, Crane married Josephine Porter Boardman and they had three children: Stephen, Bruce, and poet Louise Crane. After his retirement in 1913, Crane remained closely involved in state and national politics by frequently assisting his fellow Republicans to formulate strategies that would further their conservative interests.

Crane died in 1920 at the age of 67.

Collection Description

The Winthrop Murray Crane photograph collection contains 105 photographs in two volumes (one disbound), one box of loose photographs, and one box of oversize photographs. The majority of the photographs were taken between 1880 and 1920.

The first volume (disbound) contains photographs of London street scenes and attractions, ca. 1880-1890. The second volume contains a series of photographs of Winthrop Murray Crane and others participating in an unidentified outdoor ceremony in Framingham, Mass.

Most of the loose and oversize photographs are individual and group portraits of Winthrop Murray Crane and his family, friends, and colleagues. Subjects include his children, Winthrop Murray Crane, Jr., Stephen Crane, Bruce Crane, and Louise Crane; his second wife, Josephine Boardman Crane; Theodore Roosevelt and Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt; Roger Wolcott; Henry Cabot Lodge; John Lewis Bates; Curtis Guild; John Wingate Weeks; Allen Towner Treadway; Billy Sunday; and others. A number of the portraits are cabinet cards. The collection also contains a few later photographs of Winthrop Murray Crane's youngest son, Bruce Crane.

Photographers represented in the collection include George Washington Wilson of Aberdeen, Scotland; James Valentine of Dundee, Scotland; Alexander Gardner and Harris & Ewing of Washington, D.C.; Henry Havelock Pierce, Thomas E. Marr, Notman Photograph Company, J.E. Purdy & Co., all of Boston, Mass.; and others.

Related Materials

The Massachusetts Historical Society (MHS) holds the following collection related to the Winthrop Murray Crane photographs:

Winthrop Murray Crane papers, 1877-2000; bulk: 1896-1932. OFFSITE STORAGE and Ms. N-77 (autograph collection and oversize only). Finding aid available at: http://www.masshist.org/findingaids/doc.cfm?fa=fa0218.

Acquisition Information

This collection was removed from the Winthrop Murray Crane papers, which was a gift of The Louise Crane Foundation in April 2003, with subsequent additions in October 2003.

Organization of the Collection

The collection is organized into the following series:

Detailed Description of the Collection

Preferred Citation

Winthrop Murray Crane photographs, Photo. Coll. 219, Massachusetts Historical Society Photo Archives.

Access Terms

This collection is indexed under the following headings in ABIGAIL, the online catalog of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related persons, organizations, or subjects should search the catalog using these headings.