Edith Campbell Crane

Edith Campbell Crane served as corresponding secretary of WMU from 1907 to 1912. She and Young Woman's Auxiliary entered the WMU family at the same Annual Meeting. Her background in work with young women students made her the perfect choice to write the first YWA literature.

Miss Crane brought a flavor of Baptist ecumenicity to what was rather provincial organization at the time. She brought a world perspective, world Baptist viewpoints. Miss Crane also helped organize a woman's meeting at the Baptist World Alliance meeting in 1911. As recording secretary for the woman's committee for BWA, she kept the world's Baptist women in touch with each other.

WMU events that occurred during the tenure of Edith Crane:

1) The "Union Ideals" included "a larger intellectual life through mission study." (1909)
2) The home for women attending classes at Southern Seminary in Louisville became the Woman's Missionary Union Training School. (1907)
3) WMU purchased and occupied 15 W. Franklin Street in Baltimore, Maryland. (1909)
4) WMU's corresponding secretary planned the program for the first women's meeting of the Baptist World Alliance. (1911)
5) YWA was the name chosen for the young women's societies; badge, motto, and aims were chosen. (1907)
6) Mottos for two successive years were "Larger Things" and "Higher Things." (1907, 1908)