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 gave birth to their son Winthrop Murray Crane II in 1881, and then died in 1884 during the birth of their second child, who also didn't survive. 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.