Crane, Richard Teller (1832-1912)

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Jane Addams et al. to Bryan Lathrop, December 15, 1905

Jane Addams to Sarah Alice Addams Haldeman, July 27, 1907

Hull-House 1889-1909, 1909

Statement on Illinois State Senate Bill 233 (Child Actor Bill), March 8, 1911

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Birth Date

1832-05-15

Death Date

1912-01-08

Birthplace

Paterson, NJ

Biographical Text

Richard T. Crane, along with his brother Charles, founded R. T. Crane and Bro., a manufacturer of brass goods and plumbing supplies, in Chicago in 1855. In 1865, the brothers changed the company's name to Northwestern Manufacturing Co. and started making engines, steam pumps, and elevators. Operating as Crane Brothers Manufacturing in 1872, the company expanded, employing some 700 men and boys and producing over $1 million worth of products annually. Crane, who became known as the "Ironmmaster," was a wealthy and prominent manufacturer, earning membership into the famous and exclusive Millionaires Club on Jekyll Island, Georgia. Crane was an outspoken opponent of higher education, arguing that campuses were bastions of vice and immorality. However, the industrialist did support manual training and funded a manual-training school in Chicago.

Crane married Mary J. Prentice in 1857. After her death in 1885, he married her sister Eliza, who died in 1902. Crane died in 1912 after heart complications brought on by a severe cold. His third wife, Emily Hutchinson Crane, who was thirty-four years younger, was at his deathbed. Leaving an estate of $10 million, Crane bequeathed $2 million to charities, including $1 million to provide homes for disadvantaged children and their mothers in the countryside.

Richard Crane donated the Mary Crane building to Hull House, named after his first wife.

Occupation

Business owner

Source

Picture from Wikipedia

Collection

People

Map

Edited By

Hajo, Cathy Moran

Lichon, Sara Catherine

Lynn, Stacy

Rights

Public domain

Gender

Male

First appears

1905

Bibliography and Links

"$1,000,000 Bride Is Now Mrs. Crane," The Inter Ocean (Chicago, IL), October 15, 1903, p. 3.

"Richard T. Crane Dies Suddenly of Heart Collapse," The Chicago Daily Tribune (IL), January 9, 1912, pp. 1-2.

"Richard T. Crane University Foe, Dead," New York Times (NY), January 9, 1912, p. 13.

"Will of Richard T. Crane," Altoona Tribune (PA), January 16, 1912, p. 1.

Crane Co., Crane: 150 Years Together, pamphlet, 2005.

Finding Aid, Crane Company Records, The Newberry, Chicago, IL.

Finding Aid, Mary Crane League Records, University of Illinois at Chicago.

Mary Prentice Crane Gravestone; Eliza Prentice Crane Gravestone, both in Oak Hill Cemetery, Lake Geneva, WI

Richard Crane, 1910 United States Federal Census

Richard T. Crane, Cook County, Illinois, Marriage and Death Indexes, 1833-1889

SNAC

Wikipedia

Citation

“Crane, Richard Teller (1832-1912),” Jane Addams Digital Edition, accessed September 11, 2024, http://mail.digital.janeaddams.ramapo.edu/items/show/1611.