Richard T. Crane

Early life

Richard T. Crane was born on May 15, 1832, in Paterson, New Jersey, on Tottoway Road, near Passaic Falls to Timothy Botchford Crane and Maria Ryerson. His father was a builder-architect. Crane only had two or three years of formal schooling before embarking on a series of factory jobs, first in Patterson, and then New York City. He lost his job in the Panic of 1854, and moved to Chicago in 1855 at the suggestion of his uncle, lumber dealer Martin Ryerson.

Innovations in education

Crane was an advocate of new ways of educating children. In 1886, he was the vice president of the Chicago Manual Training School, which provided one of the first vocational education programs in the city. This was a private school serving high school students. By 1891, the Chicago public school system was offering vocational training at English High School. In that year, Crane sponsored demonstration programs in one of the city's public grade schools. One of these extended vocational training to the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades. The other demonstration added a kindergarten program.

However, he did not support all forms of learning. In the final decade of his life, he was a vocal opponent of college, and higher learning in general. His views appeared in a series of pamphlets he published, as well as articles in the trade publication he owned, The Valve. He strongly criticized fellow industrialists, for example Andrew Carnegie, who were donating millions of dollars to support higher education.

The Chicago Board of Education eventually named its manual training high school after Crane, in recognition of Crane's support of the public schools. Ironically, that high school has since changed to a college preparatory program.

Crane was married three times, the last at age 73 to 35-year-old Emily Hutchison. His children were: philanthropist and diplomat Charles Richard (b. 1858); Herbert Prentice (b. 1861); Katharine H. (Gartz) (b. 1865); May Ryerson (Russell) (b. 1866); Frances Williams (Lillie) (b. 1869); Emily Rockwell (Chadbourne) (b. 1871); Richard Teller Crane Jr. (b. 1873), who built the Castle Hill estate in Ipswich, Massachusetts. His grandson, Cornelius Vanderbilt Crane, was an explorer and philanthropist. His grandson, Richard Teller Crane II (b. 1882) was the first United States diplomat accredited to Czechoslovakia, under the Woodrow Wilson administration.

Crane was a member of the famous Jekyll Island Club (aka The Millionaires Club) on Jekyll Island, Georgia. Crane lost two nieces, Barbara and Mary Gartz, at the Iroquois Theatre fire in Chicago in 1903. He hired fire insurance expert, engineer John Ripley Freeman to conduct a study to determine the various causes of the fire.

The mother of actor/comedian Chevy Chase's mother, Cathalene, was the step-daughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt Crane, grandson of Richard T. Crane. Chase was never related in any way to the Crane family, as Cornelius divorced Chevy's grandmother and disinherited his mother.

Crane died on January 8, 1912, in Chicago, at the age of 89. He was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.