Wilder William Crane, Jr. (April 7, 1928 – December 7, 1985) was a member of the

Wisconsin State Assembly The Wisconsin State Assembly is the lower house of the Wisconsin Legislature. Together with the smaller Wisconsin Senate, the two constitute the legislative branch of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. Representatives are elected for two-year terms, ...

Biography

Crane was born on April 7, 1928, in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. He initially worked as a

lumberjack Lumberjacks are mostly North American workers in the logging industry who perform the initial harvesting and transport of trees for ultimate processing into forest products. The term usually refers to loggers in the era (before 1945 in the Unite ...

. His father owned Crane Lumber in Chippewa Falls. After serving in the state Assembly, he worked as a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He graduated from

Carlton College Carleton College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota. Founded in 1866, it had 2,105 undergraduate students and 269 faculty members in fall 2016. The 200-acre main campus is between Northfield and the 800-acre Cowling ...

and received his master's degree from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

. Crane said that the county businessmen who gave him an Ivy League education expected him to serve in the Assembly as a "return on their investment."

Political career

Crane was a member of the

from 1957 to 1958. He was a Republican. Among his actions as a legislator, he introduced a bill to the Assembly in 1957 that would permit publishing the names of juvenile offenders, and he opposed a 1957 resolution honoring

Joseph McCarthy Joseph Raymond McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visi ...

Works

Crane wrote a book on Wisconsin state politics which he used for his state politics course.

References

External links

* Politicians from Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin Republican Party members of the Wisconsin State Assembly Carleton College alumni Harvard University alumni University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee faculty Writers from Wisconsin 1928 births 1985 deaths 20th-century American politicians {{Wisconsin-WIAssembly-Republican-1920s-stub