Bio by Gate Keeper #47117174
Munford was born in Richmond on September 15, 1865, to James Read Branch and Martha Louise Patterson Branch. Although her family never experienced poverty, Munford became interested in social welfare issues at a young age. This passion intensified after her November 22, 1893, marriage to Beverley Bland Munford, a lawyer who shared his wife's interest in social concerns. In the 1890s, she organized and headed a Saturday Afternoon Club, a weekly study and social club made up of women from Richmond's social elite. Her involvement in the meetings, however, declined over time when she could not convince the group to study such issues as child labor and municipal sewage systems rather than more "refined" topics like Homer and Goethe.
Educational causes captured much of Munford's attention. She was a member and held leadership positions in the Cooperative Education Association of Virginia. She also helped establish and served as president of the Richmond Education Association, which became operational in 1901, and promoted public education—at the time woefully underfunded in almost all areas of the state. Affiliated with a national organization, the Richmond group was mainly concerned with boosting education in rural areas. The group also hosted or attended national conferences every year that, in addition to its meetings, often included tours of some of the South's African American educational institutions, such as Hampton Institute in Hampton, Virginia.
Unveiling of the MunfordPortrait
Although educated in both Richmond and New York, Munford regretted the fact that her mother had not allowed her to attend college, despite Munford's fervent pleas to do so. Hoping to improve women's opportunities for higher education, Munford headed a campaign through the Co-ordinate College League to found a coordinate college for white women at the University of Virginia. The league introduced legislation for the women's college to the Virginia General Assembly, but fierce opposition, primarily from a number of the university's alumni, ultimately defeated its efforts. Although the women's college was never founded, Munford later became a member of the Board of Visitors at the University of Virginia and, after her death, a building on campus was named in her honor. Munford was successful, however, in helping to convince the College of William and Mary to admit women in 1918, and in March 1920 she became the first woman to serve on the Board of Visitors of that institution. That same year, Munford also became the first woman to serve on the Richmond School Board.
Woman Suffrage and Civil Rights
Educational causes were not the only outlet for Munford's activism. She also joined and frequently held office in many other organizations, including the National Consumer's League, the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia, the Woman's Club of Richmond, the National Municipal League, the Young Women's Christian Association, the National Child Labor Committee, the Woman's Committee of the Council of National Defense, and the Virginia Agricultural Council of Safety. After the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted women the right to vote in 1920, Munford served on the boards of the Virginia League of Women Voters as well as on its local Richmond branch. In 1920, she was appointed to the Democratic National Committee.
Beginning around 1910, the year her husband died, Munford began to devote more attention to the plight of African Americans. Munford became an advocate of African American uplift and interracial cooperation, believing that it was her responsibility as a white aristocrat to care for the black race. Her attitude toward African Americans was paternalistic and heavily influenced by the Lost Cause view of the American Civil War (1861–1865), which argued that most slaves in the South had been happy, well-cared for, and faithful to their owners. As such, Munford often cited the love and loyalty of her own family's servants, who were former slaves, as the reason for her efforts.
Her activism was motivated, in part, by the unusual circumstances of her father's death. After the Civil War, Colonel Branch, a Confederate veteran, joined the so-called "True Republicans," white conservatives who allied with moderate Republicans to defeat the Radical Republicans. The moderates even sought support from newly enfranchised black voters. As part of their campaign, Branch attended a picnic sponsored by the Colored Walker Club of Richmond on July 2, 1869, designed especially to attract black voters in support of the moderate Republican gubernatorial candidate, Gilbert C. Walker. Hundreds of white and African American men gathered under a banner of "United we stand; divided we fall." The makeshift pedestrian bridge out to the island in the James River where the event was held collapsed under the weight of the crowd, and several people died; Munford's father was one of the victims. The dramatic story of her father's demise—a literal "sacrifice" to the cause of African American uplift, as she saw it—led Munford to become one of Virginia's most vocal white advocates of interracial cooperation.
Although Munford never directly acknowledged the injustice of segregation, she nevertheless recognized the growing needs of African Americans. Communities such as Jackson Ward, for example, a primarily African American district in Richmond, received inferior sanitation, modernization, and maintenance compared with white neighborhoods. Munford deplored the area's inadequate, overcrowded housing, and attended City Council meetings to petition for improved services for black neighborhoods and business districts. She worked with the Community House for Negro People and served on the board of trustees of Janie Porter Barrett's reformatory, the Virginia Industrial School for Colored Girls. Munford also served on the board of the National Urban League, was a founding member of the Virginia Inter-Racial League, and became a trustee at Fisk University.
Munford died in Richmond on July 3, 1938, and was buried at Hollywood Cemetery. The Mary Munford Elementary School in Richmond was named in her honor.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Times-Dispatch (Richmond, Va.),
Mon, 4 Jul 1938, p1& 12
Mrs. Munford Ends Long Life of Service
Mrs. Mary Cooke Branch Munford, 72, long prominent for her work as champion of the causes of education, better inter-racial relations and women's rights, died early yesterday morning at her home, 329 North Harrison Street.
A native of Richmond and a resident of the city almost all of her life, Mrs. Munford had been in ill health for several months. She had not been seriously ill until a few weeks ago, however, and until she took a turn for the worse, she had been planning to go to her summer home in Maine for her usual stay there.
For more than a third of a century Mrs. Munford had been a tireless worker in many political, educational, social, economic and inter-racial endeavors. Her achievements in almost everything she undertook won her State, Southern and national recognition.
Friend of Presidents
She was a friend of Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft; she served on the Democratic National Executive Committee; Her educational work resulted, among other things, and her appointment as the first woman member of the board of visitors of William and Mary College, as the first woman member of the Richmond school board and also as a member of the board of visitors of the University of Virginia.
"She was a grand fighter and she never gave up," was the way a close friend summed up Mrs. Munford's career here yesterday.
Born in Richmond September 15, 1865, Mrs. Munford was the daughter of James Read and Martha Louise Patteson branch. Her father was a colonel in the Confederate Army, and she was a descendent of Christopher Branch of Chesterfield County. Her grandfather, Thomas Branch, founded the firm of Thomas Branch & Company and the Merchants National Bank of Richmond.
It is recalled in a "History of Virginia" published in 1929 that with her father taking "inconspicuous part in saving Virginia from some of the worst evils of reconstruction" and her mother "a prominent figure in community undertakings," Mrs. Munford "grew up in an atmosphere calculated to arouse and inspire an interest in the politics and social life of her time."
College "Too Radical"
The same volume of biography relates that "her early ambition was to get a college education, but in Virginia at that time this was considered too radical a procedure to be permitted." She attended a girls' school in Richmond and a private school in New York.
It was her inability to get a regular college education that led her later to fight so strongly against the barriers that kept women in those days from attending most colleges and universities, her friends recalled yesterday. Although she was forced to go to the customary young women's finishing schools, she managed by studying on her own to master subjects which were regarded as courses not within the ken of young ladies, her friend said.
She was married on November 22, 1893, to Beverly Bland Munford, lawyer and publicist, whose interest and wide knowledge of national and State politics were another factor in Mrs. Munford's growing interest in some of the vital questions and problems of her State and country. They had two children, Mary Safford, now Mrs. Heister Hoogewerff, wife of Lieutenent-Commander Hoogewerff, and Beverley Bland Munford Jr. of Richmond. Mr. Munford Sr. died in 1910.
Shortly after the turn of the century, Mrs. Munford entered into the first organization effort in Virginia to interest citizens in the local public schools. She was one of a committee of five who formed the Richmond Education Association in 1901.
In the spring of 1902 Mrs. Munford made her first trip into the south with what was known as the Ogden Party, going to Athens, Ga., to participate in the Second Conference for Education in the South. Of this trip the "History of Virginia" says:
"While there Mrs Mumford realize the magnitude and importance of the southern educational problem as it touched both the white people and the Negroes. Having been brought up with well loved Negro servants, the bettering of race relations became naturally a question of keen interest with her. That's the major interest of her life took form - education for all people, fostering better knowledge and understanding between the races, and especially the rebuilding of her home state of Virginia."
In 1903 at the call of Governor A. J. Montague, Mrs. Munford was one of those who organized the Co-operative Education Association. She became president of this organization in 1910 and continued in this office until 1926. Her work in education was summarized by Mrs. Eudora Ramsey Richardson and an article in "Plain Talk" in 1930.
"The person who has done more for education in Virginia than anyone else is Mrs. B. B. Munford," wrote Mrs. Richardson. "She was among those who in 1904 put on throughout the state what was known as the May campaign, the objective of which was the arousing of interest in popular education. A nine-months school term for every child, a high school within reasonable distance of every child, well-trained teachers for all public schools, the introduction of agricultural and industrial training in the schools, the promotion of libraries and correlation of public libraries in public schools, schools for defective and dependent classes, the organization of a citizens association in every county and city, constituted the program and became the purposes of the Co-operative Education Association, which grew out of the May campaign.
"Mrs. Munford ... awakened rural Virginia from its long sleep and transmitted apathy into genuine interest in education. Under her regime she called the first rural conference ever held in Virginia. It was through her efforts that were all work was financed and carried on effectively. Out of a conference held in her home in 1909 grew the home demonstration work which began in 1910 in Virginia and with the appointment of Miss Agnew as State home demonstration agent and which spread from Virginia throughout the country. Before Mrs. Munford resigned the presidency of the association, there was established in every county in the state a community organization working for the better educational opportunities, and life has been injected into the public schools."
Fought For Women
Mrs. Richardson also tales of another phase in Mrs. Munford's educational work - her fight as chairman of the Co-ordinate College League for the admission of women to the University of Virginia.
"The struggle involved in opening state colleges to women offered incredible difficulties not yet anything like surmounted," Mrs. Richardson wrote.
"In 1910 Mrs. Munford gathered a little band followers about her and began working for a co-ordinate college for women at the University of Virginia. Her recruits came from the ranks of a little study group which meets regularly at her home for years.
"... Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Virginia Military Institute, the College of William and Mary, and the great University of Charlottesville, all supported by taxes, were for men exclusively; while the women had only the pitiable little normal schools. Mrs. Munford began work on the legislature in 1912. Failure, of course! Another failure in 1914. In 1916 the bill passed the Senate and was lost in the house. In 1918, if one man had not swapped his vote at the last minute, the bill would've passed. In 1920 the board of visitors open the graduate and professional schools to women.
"Through it all Mrs. Munford labored year in and year out. She spoke at one legislative hearing after another… The battle is not one. When it is… the laurels will belong to Mrs Mumford. The opening of the College of William and Mary to girls served temporarily to stay the agitators…"
Won 10-Hour Law
Friends also recall that Mrs. Munford took a leading part in advocating legislation to limit the hours of women workers in industry.
One of them yesterday said it was Mrs. Mumford strong argument before legislative committees that caused the passage of the law limiting hours of women workers to 10 a day – a law that was replaced by a new one in the 1938 assembly, which to create a limit of nine hours a day and 48 a week.
Mrs. Munford was one of the group of 10 who organized the Woman's Club of Richmond. She served for a number of years on the South Atlantic Field Committee of the Y.W.C.A. She also was a member of the board of the National Child Labor Committee and the National Consumers' League. She served on a commission on country life appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt, and went into the demonstration farm experimental work with Dr. Seaman A. Knapp of the Department of Agriculture.
Mrs. Munford became the first woman member of the Richmond School Board in 1919 and served in that office until 1931. In 1920 came her appointment as the first woman member of the board of the College of William and Mary. Six years later she became a member of the board of the University of Virginia.
She was a member of the board of the Virginia and Richmond League of Women Voters, member of the board of Fisk University from 1922 to 1928, member of the board of the National Urban League, member of the Council on Colored Work, National Y.W.C.A. She assisted in organizing the Virginia Industrial School for Delinquent Colored Girls.
During the World War Mrs. Mumford served as chairman for Virginia of the Women's Committee, National Council of Defense; was a member of the Virginia Agricultural Council of Safety and of the National War Work Council Y.W.C.A. She was a member of the D.A.R., an honorary member of the American Association of University Women and an honorary member of Alpha Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa at William and Mary. She was also a member of the Cosmopolitan Club of New York, and of the Virginia Historical Society. As a member of the board of the Child Study Association of America, she organized the first child study group in Virginia. Through her efforts an appropriation from the Laura Spellman fund was made for this work.
Mrs. Munford is survived by her daughter, Mrs. Hoogewerff; her son, Mr. Munford; two sisters, Mrs. George B. McAdams and Mrs. Elizabeth H. Bowie of Richmond; a brother, James R. Branch of Florida, and two grandchildren.
Funeral services will be held at 5 p.m. Monday afternoon in St. Paul's Episcopal Church, of which she was a member. Dr. Beverley D. Tucker, rector of St. Paul's, will conduct the service, assisted by Dr. Beverley M. Boyd, rector of Grace and Holy Trinity Church.
Munford was born in Richmond on September 15, 1865, to James Read Branch and Martha Louise Patterson Branch. Although her family never experienced poverty, Munford became interested in social welfare issues at a young age. This passion intensified after her November 22, 1893, marriage to Beverley Bland Munford, a lawyer who shared his wife's interest in social concerns. In the 1890s, she organized and headed a Saturday Afternoon Club, a weekly study and social club made up of women from Richmond's social elite. Her involvement in the meetings, however, declined over time when she could not convince the group to study such issues as child labor and municipal sewage systems rather than more "refined" topics like Homer and Goethe.
Educational causes captured much of Munford's attention. She was a member and held leadership positions in the Cooperative Education Association of Virginia. She also helped establish and served as president of the Richmond Education Association, which became operational in 1901, and promoted public education—at the time woefully underfunded in almost all areas of the state. Affiliated with a national organization, the Richmond group was mainly concerned with boosting education in rural areas. The group also hosted or attended national conferences every year that, in addition to its meetings, often included tours of some of the South's African American educational institutions, such as Hampton Institute in Hampton, Virginia.
Unveiling of the MunfordPortrait
Although educated in both Richmond and New York, Munford regretted the fact that her mother had not allowed her to attend college, despite Munford's fervent pleas to do so. Hoping to improve women's opportunities for higher education, Munford headed a campaign through the Co-ordinate College League to found a coordinate college for white women at the University of Virginia. The league introduced legislation for the women's college to the Virginia General Assembly, but fierce opposition, primarily from a number of the university's alumni, ultimately defeated its efforts. Although the women's college was never founded, Munford later became a member of the Board of Visitors at the University of Virginia and, after her death, a building on campus was named in her honor. Munford was successful, however, in helping to convince the College of William and Mary to admit women in 1918, and in March 1920 she became the first woman to serve on the Board of Visitors of that institution. That same year, Munford also became the first woman to serve on the Richmond School Board.
Woman Suffrage and Civil Rights
Educational causes were not the only outlet for Munford's activism. She also joined and frequently held office in many other organizations, including the National Consumer's League, the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia, the Woman's Club of Richmond, the National Municipal League, the Young Women's Christian Association, the National Child Labor Committee, the Woman's Committee of the Council of National Defense, and the Virginia Agricultural Council of Safety. After the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted women the right to vote in 1920, Munford served on the boards of the Virginia League of Women Voters as well as on its local Richmond branch. In 1920, she was appointed to the Democratic National Committee.
Beginning around 1910, the year her husband died, Munford began to devote more attention to the plight of African Americans. Munford became an advocate of African American uplift and interracial cooperation, believing that it was her responsibility as a white aristocrat to care for the black race. Her attitude toward African Americans was paternalistic and heavily influenced by the Lost Cause view of the American Civil War (1861–1865), which argued that most slaves in the South had been happy, well-cared for, and faithful to their owners. As such, Munford often cited the love and loyalty of her own family's servants, who were former slaves, as the reason for her efforts.
Her activism was motivated, in part, by the unusual circumstances of her father's death. After the Civil War, Colonel Branch, a Confederate veteran, joined the so-called "True Republicans," white conservatives who allied with moderate Republicans to defeat the Radical Republicans. The moderates even sought support from newly enfranchised black voters. As part of their campaign, Branch attended a picnic sponsored by the Colored Walker Club of Richmond on July 2, 1869, designed especially to attract black voters in support of the moderate Republican gubernatorial candidate, Gilbert C. Walker. Hundreds of white and African American men gathered under a banner of "United we stand; divided we fall." The makeshift pedestrian bridge out to the island in the James River where the event was held collapsed under the weight of the crowd, and several people died; Munford's father was one of the victims. The dramatic story of her father's demise—a literal "sacrifice" to the cause of African American uplift, as she saw it—led Munford to become one of Virginia's most vocal white advocates of interracial cooperation.
Although Munford never directly acknowledged the injustice of segregation, she nevertheless recognized the growing needs of African Americans. Communities such as Jackson Ward, for example, a primarily African American district in Richmond, received inferior sanitation, modernization, and maintenance compared with white neighborhoods. Munford deplored the area's inadequate, overcrowded housing, and attended City Council meetings to petition for improved services for black neighborhoods and business districts. She worked with the Community House for Negro People and served on the board of trustees of Janie Porter Barrett's reformatory, the Virginia Industrial School for Colored Girls. Munford also served on the board of the National Urban League, was a founding member of the Virginia Inter-Racial League, and became a trustee at Fisk University.
Munford died in Richmond on July 3, 1938, and was buried at Hollywood Cemetery. The Mary Munford Elementary School in Richmond was named in her honor.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Times-Dispatch (Richmond, Va.),
Mon, 4 Jul 1938, p1& 12
Mrs. Munford Ends Long Life of Service
Mrs. Mary Cooke Branch Munford, 72, long prominent for her work as champion of the causes of education, better inter-racial relations and women's rights, died early yesterday morning at her home, 329 North Harrison Street.
A native of Richmond and a resident of the city almost all of her life, Mrs. Munford had been in ill health for several months. She had not been seriously ill until a few weeks ago, however, and until she took a turn for the worse, she had been planning to go to her summer home in Maine for her usual stay there.
For more than a third of a century Mrs. Munford had been a tireless worker in many political, educational, social, economic and inter-racial endeavors. Her achievements in almost everything she undertook won her State, Southern and national recognition.
Friend of Presidents
She was a friend of Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft; she served on the Democratic National Executive Committee; Her educational work resulted, among other things, and her appointment as the first woman member of the board of visitors of William and Mary College, as the first woman member of the Richmond school board and also as a member of the board of visitors of the University of Virginia.
"She was a grand fighter and she never gave up," was the way a close friend summed up Mrs. Munford's career here yesterday.
Born in Richmond September 15, 1865, Mrs. Munford was the daughter of James Read and Martha Louise Patteson branch. Her father was a colonel in the Confederate Army, and she was a descendent of Christopher Branch of Chesterfield County. Her grandfather, Thomas Branch, founded the firm of Thomas Branch & Company and the Merchants National Bank of Richmond.
It is recalled in a "History of Virginia" published in 1929 that with her father taking "inconspicuous part in saving Virginia from some of the worst evils of reconstruction" and her mother "a prominent figure in community undertakings," Mrs. Munford "grew up in an atmosphere calculated to arouse and inspire an interest in the politics and social life of her time."
College "Too Radical"
The same volume of biography relates that "her early ambition was to get a college education, but in Virginia at that time this was considered too radical a procedure to be permitted." She attended a girls' school in Richmond and a private school in New York.
It was her inability to get a regular college education that led her later to fight so strongly against the barriers that kept women in those days from attending most colleges and universities, her friends recalled yesterday. Although she was forced to go to the customary young women's finishing schools, she managed by studying on her own to master subjects which were regarded as courses not within the ken of young ladies, her friend said.
She was married on November 22, 1893, to Beverly Bland Munford, lawyer and publicist, whose interest and wide knowledge of national and State politics were another factor in Mrs. Munford's growing interest in some of the vital questions and problems of her State and country. They had two children, Mary Safford, now Mrs. Heister Hoogewerff, wife of Lieutenent-Commander Hoogewerff, and Beverley Bland Munford Jr. of Richmond. Mr. Munford Sr. died in 1910.
Shortly after the turn of the century, Mrs. Munford entered into the first organization effort in Virginia to interest citizens in the local public schools. She was one of a committee of five who formed the Richmond Education Association in 1901.
In the spring of 1902 Mrs. Munford made her first trip into the south with what was known as the Ogden Party, going to Athens, Ga., to participate in the Second Conference for Education in the South. Of this trip the "History of Virginia" says:
"While there Mrs Mumford realize the magnitude and importance of the southern educational problem as it touched both the white people and the Negroes. Having been brought up with well loved Negro servants, the bettering of race relations became naturally a question of keen interest with her. That's the major interest of her life took form - education for all people, fostering better knowledge and understanding between the races, and especially the rebuilding of her home state of Virginia."
In 1903 at the call of Governor A. J. Montague, Mrs. Munford was one of those who organized the Co-operative Education Association. She became president of this organization in 1910 and continued in this office until 1926. Her work in education was summarized by Mrs. Eudora Ramsey Richardson and an article in "Plain Talk" in 1930.
"The person who has done more for education in Virginia than anyone else is Mrs. B. B. Munford," wrote Mrs. Richardson. "She was among those who in 1904 put on throughout the state what was known as the May campaign, the objective of which was the arousing of interest in popular education. A nine-months school term for every child, a high school within reasonable distance of every child, well-trained teachers for all public schools, the introduction of agricultural and industrial training in the schools, the promotion of libraries and correlation of public libraries in public schools, schools for defective and dependent classes, the organization of a citizens association in every county and city, constituted the program and became the purposes of the Co-operative Education Association, which grew out of the May campaign.
"Mrs. Munford ... awakened rural Virginia from its long sleep and transmitted apathy into genuine interest in education. Under her regime she called the first rural conference ever held in Virginia. It was through her efforts that were all work was financed and carried on effectively. Out of a conference held in her home in 1909 grew the home demonstration work which began in 1910 in Virginia and with the appointment of Miss Agnew as State home demonstration agent and which spread from Virginia throughout the country. Before Mrs. Munford resigned the presidency of the association, there was established in every county in the state a community organization working for the better educational opportunities, and life has been injected into the public schools."
Fought For Women
Mrs. Richardson also tales of another phase in Mrs. Munford's educational work - her fight as chairman of the Co-ordinate College League for the admission of women to the University of Virginia.
"The struggle involved in opening state colleges to women offered incredible difficulties not yet anything like surmounted," Mrs. Richardson wrote.
"In 1910 Mrs. Munford gathered a little band followers about her and began working for a co-ordinate college for women at the University of Virginia. Her recruits came from the ranks of a little study group which meets regularly at her home for years.
"... Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Virginia Military Institute, the College of William and Mary, and the great University of Charlottesville, all supported by taxes, were for men exclusively; while the women had only the pitiable little normal schools. Mrs. Munford began work on the legislature in 1912. Failure, of course! Another failure in 1914. In 1916 the bill passed the Senate and was lost in the house. In 1918, if one man had not swapped his vote at the last minute, the bill would've passed. In 1920 the board of visitors open the graduate and professional schools to women.
"Through it all Mrs. Munford labored year in and year out. She spoke at one legislative hearing after another… The battle is not one. When it is… the laurels will belong to Mrs Mumford. The opening of the College of William and Mary to girls served temporarily to stay the agitators…"
Won 10-Hour Law
Friends also recall that Mrs. Munford took a leading part in advocating legislation to limit the hours of women workers in industry.
One of them yesterday said it was Mrs. Mumford strong argument before legislative committees that caused the passage of the law limiting hours of women workers to 10 a day – a law that was replaced by a new one in the 1938 assembly, which to create a limit of nine hours a day and 48 a week.
Mrs. Munford was one of the group of 10 who organized the Woman's Club of Richmond. She served for a number of years on the South Atlantic Field Committee of the Y.W.C.A. She also was a member of the board of the National Child Labor Committee and the National Consumers' League. She served on a commission on country life appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt, and went into the demonstration farm experimental work with Dr. Seaman A. Knapp of the Department of Agriculture.
Mrs. Munford became the first woman member of the Richmond School Board in 1919 and served in that office until 1931. In 1920 came her appointment as the first woman member of the board of the College of William and Mary. Six years later she became a member of the board of the University of Virginia.
She was a member of the board of the Virginia and Richmond League of Women Voters, member of the board of Fisk University from 1922 to 1928, member of the board of the National Urban League, member of the Council on Colored Work, National Y.W.C.A. She assisted in organizing the Virginia Industrial School for Delinquent Colored Girls.
During the World War Mrs. Mumford served as chairman for Virginia of the Women's Committee, National Council of Defense; was a member of the Virginia Agricultural Council of Safety and of the National War Work Council Y.W.C.A. She was a member of the D.A.R., an honorary member of the American Association of University Women and an honorary member of Alpha Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa at William and Mary. She was also a member of the Cosmopolitan Club of New York, and of the Virginia Historical Society. As a member of the board of the Child Study Association of America, she organized the first child study group in Virginia. Through her efforts an appropriation from the Laura Spellman fund was made for this work.
Mrs. Munford is survived by her daughter, Mrs. Hoogewerff; her son, Mr. Munford; two sisters, Mrs. George B. McAdams and Mrs. Elizabeth H. Bowie of Richmond; a brother, James R. Branch of Florida, and two grandchildren.
Funeral services will be held at 5 p.m. Monday afternoon in St. Paul's Episcopal Church, of which she was a member. Dr. Beverley D. Tucker, rector of St. Paul's, will conduct the service, assisted by Dr. Beverley M. Boyd, rector of Grace and Holy Trinity Church.
Bio by Gate Keeper #47117174
Munford was born in Richmond on September 15, 1865, to James Read Branch and Martha Louise Patterson Branch. Although her family never experienced poverty, Munford became interested in social welfare issues at a young age. This passion intensified after her November 22, 1893, marriage to Beverley Bland Munford, a lawyer who shared his wife's interest in social concerns. In the 1890s, she organized and headed a Saturday Afternoon Club, a weekly study and social club made up of women from Richmond's social elite. Her involvement in the meetings, however, declined over time when she could not convince the group to study such issues as child labor and municipal sewage systems rather than more "refined" topics like Homer and Goethe.
Educational causes captured much of Munford's attention. She was a member and held leadership positions in the Cooperative Education Association of Virginia. She also helped establish and served as president of the Richmond Education Association, which became operational in 1901, and promoted public education—at the time woefully underfunded in almost all areas of the state. Affiliated with a national organization, the Richmond group was mainly concerned with boosting education in rural areas. The group also hosted or attended national conferences every year that, in addition to its meetings, often included tours of some of the South's African American educational institutions, such as Hampton Institute in Hampton, Virginia.
Unveiling of the MunfordPortrait
Although educated in both Richmond and New York, Munford regretted the fact that her mother had not allowed her to attend college, despite Munford's fervent pleas to do so. Hoping to improve women's opportunities for higher education, Munford headed a campaign through the Co-ordinate College League to found a coordinate college for white women at the University of Virginia. The league introduced legislation for the women's college to the Virginia General Assembly, but fierce opposition, primarily from a number of the university's alumni, ultimately defeated its efforts. Although the women's college was never founded, Munford later became a member of the Board of Visitors at the University of Virginia and, after her death, a building on campus was named in her honor. Munford was successful, however, in helping to convince the College of William and Mary to admit women in 1918, and in March 1920 she became the first woman to serve on the Board of Visitors of that institution. That same year, Munford also became the first woman to serve on the Richmond School Board.
Woman Suffrage and Civil Rights
Educational causes were not the only outlet for Munford's activism. She also joined and frequently held office in many other organizations, including the National Consumer's League, the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia, the Woman's Club of Richmond, the National Municipal League, the Young Women's Christian Association, the National Child Labor Committee, the Woman's Committee of the Council of National Defense, and the Virginia Agricultural Council of Safety. After the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted women the right to vote in 1920, Munford served on the boards of the Virginia League of Women Voters as well as on its local Richmond branch. In 1920, she was appointed to the Democratic National Committee.
Beginning around 1910, the year her husband died, Munford began to devote more attention to the plight of African Americans. Munford became an advocate of African American uplift and interracial cooperation, believing that it was her responsibility as a white aristocrat to care for the black race. Her attitude toward African Americans was paternalistic and heavily influenced by the Lost Cause view of the American Civil War (1861–1865), which argued that most slaves in the South had been happy, well-cared for, and faithful to their owners. As such, Munford often cited the love and loyalty of her own family's servants, who were former slaves, as the reason for her efforts.
Her activism was motivated, in part, by the unusual circumstances of her father's death. After the Civil War, Colonel Branch, a Confederate veteran, joined the so-called "True Republicans," white conservatives who allied with moderate Republicans to defeat the Radical Republicans. The moderates even sought support from newly enfranchised black voters. As part of their campaign, Branch attended a picnic sponsored by the Colored Walker Club of Richmond on July 2, 1869, designed especially to attract black voters in support of the moderate Republican gubernatorial candidate, Gilbert C. Walker. Hundreds of white and African American men gathered under a banner of "United we stand; divided we fall." The makeshift pedestrian bridge out to the island in the James River where the event was held collapsed under the weight of the crowd, and several people died; Munford's father was one of the victims. The dramatic story of her father's demise—a literal "sacrifice" to the cause of African American uplift, as she saw it—led Munford to become one of Virginia's most vocal white advocates of interracial cooperation.
Although Munford never directly acknowledged the injustice of segregation, she nevertheless recognized the growing needs of African Americans. Communities such as Jackson Ward, for example, a primarily African American district in Richmond, received inferior sanitation, modernization, and maintenance compared with white neighborhoods. Munford deplored the area's inadequate, overcrowded housing, and attended City Council meetings to petition for improved services for black neighborhoods and business districts. She worked with the Community House for Negro People and served on the board of trustees of Janie Porter Barrett's reformatory, the Virginia Industrial School for Colored Girls. Munford also served on the board of the National Urban League, was a founding member of the Virginia Inter-Racial League, and became a trustee at Fisk University.
Munford died in Richmond on July 3, 1938, and was buried at Hollywood Cemetery. The Mary Munford Elementary School in Richmond was named in her honor.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Times-Dispatch (Richmond, Va.),
Mon, 4 Jul 1938, p1& 12
Mrs. Munford Ends Long Life of Service
Mrs. Mary Cooke Branch Munford, 72, long prominent for her work as champion of the causes of education, better inter-racial relations and women's rights, died early yesterday morning at her home, 329 North Harrison Street.
A native of Richmond and a resident of the city almost all of her life, Mrs. Munford had been in ill health for several months. She had not been seriously ill until a few weeks ago, however, and until she took a turn for the worse, she had been planning to go to her summer home in Maine for her usual stay there.
For more than a third of a century Mrs. Munford had been a tireless worker in many political, educational, social, economic and inter-racial endeavors. Her achievements in almost everything she undertook won her State, Southern and national recognition.
Friend of Presidents
She was a friend of Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft; she served on the Democratic National Executive Committee; Her educational work resulted, among other things, and her appointment as the first woman member of the board of visitors of William and Mary College, as the first woman member of the Richmond school board and also as a member of the board of visitors of the University of Virginia.
"She was a grand fighter and she never gave up," was the way a close friend summed up Mrs. Munford's career here yesterday.
Born in Richmond September 15, 1865, Mrs. Munford was the daughter of James Read and Martha Louise Patteson branch. Her father was a colonel in the Confederate Army, and she was a descendent of Christopher Branch of Chesterfield County. Her grandfather, Thomas Branch, founded the firm of Thomas Branch & Company and the Merchants National Bank of Richmond.
It is recalled in a "History of Virginia" published in 1929 that with her father taking "inconspicuous part in saving Virginia from some of the worst evils of reconstruction" and her mother "a prominent figure in community undertakings," Mrs. Munford "grew up in an atmosphere calculated to arouse and inspire an interest in the politics and social life of her time."
College "Too Radical"
The same volume of biography relates that "her early ambition was to get a college education, but in Virginia at that time this was considered too radical a procedure to be permitted." She attended a girls' school in Richmond and a private school in New York.
It was her inability to get a regular college education that led her later to fight so strongly against the barriers that kept women in those days from attending most colleges and universities, her friends recalled yesterday. Although she was forced to go to the customary young women's finishing schools, she managed by studying on her own to master subjects which were regarded as courses not within the ken of young ladies, her friend said.
She was married on November 22, 1893, to Beverly Bland Munford, lawyer and publicist, whose interest and wide knowledge of national and State politics were another factor in Mrs. Munford's growing interest in some of the vital questions and problems of her State and country. They had two children, Mary Safford, now Mrs. Heister Hoogewerff, wife of Lieutenent-Commander Hoogewerff, and Beverley Bland Munford Jr. of Richmond. Mr. Munford Sr. died in 1910.
Shortly after the turn of the century, Mrs. Munford entered into the first organization effort in Virginia to interest citizens in the local public schools. She was one of a committee of five who formed the Richmond Education Association in 1901.
In the spring of 1902 Mrs. Munford made her first trip into the south with what was known as the Ogden Party, going to Athens, Ga., to participate in the Second Conference for Education in the South. Of this trip the "History of Virginia" says:
"While there Mrs Mumford realize the magnitude and importance of the southern educational problem as it touched both the white people and the Negroes. Having been brought up with well loved Negro servants, the bettering of race relations became naturally a question of keen interest with her. That's the major interest of her life took form - education for all people, fostering better knowledge and understanding between the races, and especially the rebuilding of her home state of Virginia."
In 1903 at the call of Governor A. J. Montague, Mrs. Munford was one of those who organized the Co-operative Education Association. She became president of this organization in 1910 and continued in this office until 1926. Her work in education was summarized by Mrs. Eudora Ramsey Richardson and an article in "Plain Talk" in 1930.
"The person who has done more for education in Virginia than anyone else is Mrs. B. B. Munford," wrote Mrs. Richardson. "She was among those who in 1904 put on throughout the state what was known as the May campaign, the objective of which was the arousing of interest in popular education. A nine-months school term for every child, a high school within reasonable distance of every child, well-trained teachers for all public schools, the introduction of agricultural and industrial training in the schools, the promotion of libraries and correlation of public libraries in public schools, schools for defective and dependent classes, the organization of a citizens association in every county and city, constituted the program and became the purposes of the Co-operative Education Association, which grew out of the May campaign.
"Mrs. Munford ... awakened rural Virginia from its long sleep and transmitted apathy into genuine interest in education. Under her regime she called the first rural conference ever held in Virginia. It was through her efforts that were all work was financed and carried on effectively. Out of a conference held in her home in 1909 grew the home demonstration work which began in 1910 in Virginia and with the appointment of Miss Agnew as State home demonstration agent and which spread from Virginia throughout the country. Before Mrs. Munford resigned the presidency of the association, there was established in every county in the state a community organization working for the better educational opportunities, and life has been injected into the public schools."
Fought For Women
Mrs. Richardson also tales of another phase in Mrs. Munford's educational work - her fight as chairman of the Co-ordinate College League for the admission of women to the University of Virginia.
"The struggle involved in opening state colleges to women offered incredible difficulties not yet anything like surmounted," Mrs. Richardson wrote.
"In 1910 Mrs. Munford gathered a little band followers about her and began working for a co-ordinate college for women at the University of Virginia. Her recruits came from the ranks of a little study group which meets regularly at her home for years.
"... Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Virginia Military Institute, the College of William and Mary, and the great University of Charlottesville, all supported by taxes, were for men exclusively; while the women had only the pitiable little normal schools. Mrs. Munford began work on the legislature in 1912. Failure, of course! Another failure in 1914. In 1916 the bill passed the Senate and was lost in the house. In 1918, if one man had not swapped his vote at the last minute, the bill would've passed. In 1920 the board of visitors open the graduate and professional schools to women.
"Through it all Mrs. Munford labored year in and year out. She spoke at one legislative hearing after another… The battle is not one. When it is… the laurels will belong to Mrs Mumford. The opening of the College of William and Mary to girls served temporarily to stay the agitators…"
Won 10-Hour Law
Friends also recall that Mrs. Munford took a leading part in advocating legislation to limit the hours of women workers in industry.
One of them yesterday said it was Mrs. Mumford strong argument before legislative committees that caused the passage of the law limiting hours of women workers to 10 a day – a law that was replaced by a new one in the 1938 assembly, which to create a limit of nine hours a day and 48 a week.
Mrs. Munford was one of the group of 10 who organized the Woman's Club of Richmond. She served for a number of years on the South Atlantic Field Committee of the Y.W.C.A. She also was a member of the board of the National Child Labor Committee and the National Consumers' League. She served on a commission on country life appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt, and went into the demonstration farm experimental work with Dr. Seaman A. Knapp of the Department of Agriculture.
Mrs. Munford became the first woman member of the Richmond School Board in 1919 and served in that office until 1931. In 1920 came her appointment as the first woman member of the board of the College of William and Mary. Six years later she became a member of the board of the University of Virginia.
She was a member of the board of the Virginia and Richmond League of Women Voters, member of the board of Fisk University from 1922 to 1928, member of the board of the National Urban League, member of the Council on Colored Work, National Y.W.C.A. She assisted in organizing the Virginia Industrial School for Delinquent Colored Girls.
During the World War Mrs. Mumford served as chairman for Virginia of the Women's Committee, National Council of Defense; was a member of the Virginia Agricultural Council of Safety and of the National War Work Council Y.W.C.A. She was a member of the D.A.R., an honorary member of the American Association of University Women and an honorary member of Alpha Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa at William and Mary. She was also a member of the Cosmopolitan Club of New York, and of the Virginia Historical Society. As a member of the board of the Child Study Association of America, she organized the first child study group in Virginia. Through her efforts an appropriation from the Laura Spellman fund was made for this work.
Mrs. Munford is survived by her daughter, Mrs. Hoogewerff; her son, Mr. Munford; two sisters, Mrs. George B. McAdams and Mrs. Elizabeth H. Bowie of Richmond; a brother, James R. Branch of Florida, and two grandchildren.
Funeral services will be held at 5 p.m. Monday afternoon in St. Paul's Episcopal Church, of which she was a member. Dr. Beverley D. Tucker, rector of St. Paul's, will conduct the service, assisted by Dr. Beverley M. Boyd, rector of Grace and Holy Trinity Church.
Munford was born in Richmond on September 15, 1865, to James Read Branch and Martha Louise Patterson Branch. Although her family never experienced poverty, Munford became interested in social welfare issues at a young age. This passion intensified after her November 22, 1893, marriage to Beverley Bland Munford, a lawyer who shared his wife's interest in social concerns. In the 1890s, she organized and headed a Saturday Afternoon Club, a weekly study and social club made up of women from Richmond's social elite. Her involvement in the meetings, however, declined over time when she could not convince the group to study such issues as child labor and municipal sewage systems rather than more "refined" topics like Homer and Goethe.
Educational causes captured much of Munford's attention. She was a member and held leadership positions in the Cooperative Education Association of Virginia. She also helped establish and served as president of the Richmond Education Association, which became operational in 1901, and promoted public education—at the time woefully underfunded in almost all areas of the state. Affiliated with a national organization, the Richmond group was mainly concerned with boosting education in rural areas. The group also hosted or attended national conferences every year that, in addition to its meetings, often included tours of some of the South's African American educational institutions, such as Hampton Institute in Hampton, Virginia.
Unveiling of the MunfordPortrait
Although educated in both Richmond and New York, Munford regretted the fact that her mother had not allowed her to attend college, despite Munford's fervent pleas to do so. Hoping to improve women's opportunities for higher education, Munford headed a campaign through the Co-ordinate College League to found a coordinate college for white women at the University of Virginia. The league introduced legislation for the women's college to the Virginia General Assembly, but fierce opposition, primarily from a number of the university's alumni, ultimately defeated its efforts. Although the women's college was never founded, Munford later became a member of the Board of Visitors at the University of Virginia and, after her death, a building on campus was named in her honor. Munford was successful, however, in helping to convince the College of William and Mary to admit women in 1918, and in March 1920 she became the first woman to serve on the Board of Visitors of that institution. That same year, Munford also became the first woman to serve on the Richmond School Board.
Woman Suffrage and Civil Rights
Educational causes were not the only outlet for Munford's activism. She also joined and frequently held office in many other organizations, including the National Consumer's League, the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia, the Woman's Club of Richmond, the National Municipal League, the Young Women's Christian Association, the National Child Labor Committee, the Woman's Committee of the Council of National Defense, and the Virginia Agricultural Council of Safety. After the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted women the right to vote in 1920, Munford served on the boards of the Virginia League of Women Voters as well as on its local Richmond branch. In 1920, she was appointed to the Democratic National Committee.
Beginning around 1910, the year her husband died, Munford began to devote more attention to the plight of African Americans. Munford became an advocate of African American uplift and interracial cooperation, believing that it was her responsibility as a white aristocrat to care for the black race. Her attitude toward African Americans was paternalistic and heavily influenced by the Lost Cause view of the American Civil War (1861–1865), which argued that most slaves in the South had been happy, well-cared for, and faithful to their owners. As such, Munford often cited the love and loyalty of her own family's servants, who were former slaves, as the reason for her efforts.
Her activism was motivated, in part, by the unusual circumstances of her father's death. After the Civil War, Colonel Branch, a Confederate veteran, joined the so-called "True Republicans," white conservatives who allied with moderate Republicans to defeat the Radical Republicans. The moderates even sought support from newly enfranchised black voters. As part of their campaign, Branch attended a picnic sponsored by the Colored Walker Club of Richmond on July 2, 1869, designed especially to attract black voters in support of the moderate Republican gubernatorial candidate, Gilbert C. Walker. Hundreds of white and African American men gathered under a banner of "United we stand; divided we fall." The makeshift pedestrian bridge out to the island in the James River where the event was held collapsed under the weight of the crowd, and several people died; Munford's father was one of the victims. The dramatic story of her father's demise—a literal "sacrifice" to the cause of African American uplift, as she saw it—led Munford to become one of Virginia's most vocal white advocates of interracial cooperation.
Although Munford never directly acknowledged the injustice of segregation, she nevertheless recognized the growing needs of African Americans. Communities such as Jackson Ward, for example, a primarily African American district in Richmond, received inferior sanitation, modernization, and maintenance compared with white neighborhoods. Munford deplored the area's inadequate, overcrowded housing, and attended City Council meetings to petition for improved services for black neighborhoods and business districts. She worked with the Community House for Negro People and served on the board of trustees of Janie Porter Barrett's reformatory, the Virginia Industrial School for Colored Girls. Munford also served on the board of the National Urban League, was a founding member of the Virginia Inter-Racial League, and became a trustee at Fisk University.
Munford died in Richmond on July 3, 1938, and was buried at Hollywood Cemetery. The Mary Munford Elementary School in Richmond was named in her honor.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Times-Dispatch (Richmond, Va.),
Mon, 4 Jul 1938, p1& 12
Mrs. Munford Ends Long Life of Service
Mrs. Mary Cooke Branch Munford, 72, long prominent for her work as champion of the causes of education, better inter-racial relations and women's rights, died early yesterday morning at her home, 329 North Harrison Street.
A native of Richmond and a resident of the city almost all of her life, Mrs. Munford had been in ill health for several months. She had not been seriously ill until a few weeks ago, however, and until she took a turn for the worse, she had been planning to go to her summer home in Maine for her usual stay there.
For more than a third of a century Mrs. Munford had been a tireless worker in many political, educational, social, economic and inter-racial endeavors. Her achievements in almost everything she undertook won her State, Southern and national recognition.
Friend of Presidents
She was a friend of Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft; she served on the Democratic National Executive Committee; Her educational work resulted, among other things, and her appointment as the first woman member of the board of visitors of William and Mary College, as the first woman member of the Richmond school board and also as a member of the board of visitors of the University of Virginia.
"She was a grand fighter and she never gave up," was the way a close friend summed up Mrs. Munford's career here yesterday.
Born in Richmond September 15, 1865, Mrs. Munford was the daughter of James Read and Martha Louise Patteson branch. Her father was a colonel in the Confederate Army, and she was a descendent of Christopher Branch of Chesterfield County. Her grandfather, Thomas Branch, founded the firm of Thomas Branch & Company and the Merchants National Bank of Richmond.
It is recalled in a "History of Virginia" published in 1929 that with her father taking "inconspicuous part in saving Virginia from some of the worst evils of reconstruction" and her mother "a prominent figure in community undertakings," Mrs. Munford "grew up in an atmosphere calculated to arouse and inspire an interest in the politics and social life of her time."
College "Too Radical"
The same volume of biography relates that "her early ambition was to get a college education, but in Virginia at that time this was considered too radical a procedure to be permitted." She attended a girls' school in Richmond and a private school in New York.
It was her inability to get a regular college education that led her later to fight so strongly against the barriers that kept women in those days from attending most colleges and universities, her friends recalled yesterday. Although she was forced to go to the customary young women's finishing schools, she managed by studying on her own to master subjects which were regarded as courses not within the ken of young ladies, her friend said.
She was married on November 22, 1893, to Beverly Bland Munford, lawyer and publicist, whose interest and wide knowledge of national and State politics were another factor in Mrs. Munford's growing interest in some of the vital questions and problems of her State and country. They had two children, Mary Safford, now Mrs. Heister Hoogewerff, wife of Lieutenent-Commander Hoogewerff, and Beverley Bland Munford Jr. of Richmond. Mr. Munford Sr. died in 1910.
Shortly after the turn of the century, Mrs. Munford entered into the first organization effort in Virginia to interest citizens in the local public schools. She was one of a committee of five who formed the Richmond Education Association in 1901.
In the spring of 1902 Mrs. Munford made her first trip into the south with what was known as the Ogden Party, going to Athens, Ga., to participate in the Second Conference for Education in the South. Of this trip the "History of Virginia" says:
"While there Mrs Mumford realize the magnitude and importance of the southern educational problem as it touched both the white people and the Negroes. Having been brought up with well loved Negro servants, the bettering of race relations became naturally a question of keen interest with her. That's the major interest of her life took form - education for all people, fostering better knowledge and understanding between the races, and especially the rebuilding of her home state of Virginia."
In 1903 at the call of Governor A. J. Montague, Mrs. Munford was one of those who organized the Co-operative Education Association. She became president of this organization in 1910 and continued in this office until 1926. Her work in education was summarized by Mrs. Eudora Ramsey Richardson and an article in "Plain Talk" in 1930.
"The person who has done more for education in Virginia than anyone else is Mrs. B. B. Munford," wrote Mrs. Richardson. "She was among those who in 1904 put on throughout the state what was known as the May campaign, the objective of which was the arousing of interest in popular education. A nine-months school term for every child, a high school within reasonable distance of every child, well-trained teachers for all public schools, the introduction of agricultural and industrial training in the schools, the promotion of libraries and correlation of public libraries in public schools, schools for defective and dependent classes, the organization of a citizens association in every county and city, constituted the program and became the purposes of the Co-operative Education Association, which grew out of the May campaign.
"Mrs. Munford ... awakened rural Virginia from its long sleep and transmitted apathy into genuine interest in education. Under her regime she called the first rural conference ever held in Virginia. It was through her efforts that were all work was financed and carried on effectively. Out of a conference held in her home in 1909 grew the home demonstration work which began in 1910 in Virginia and with the appointment of Miss Agnew as State home demonstration agent and which spread from Virginia throughout the country. Before Mrs. Munford resigned the presidency of the association, there was established in every county in the state a community organization working for the better educational opportunities, and life has been injected into the public schools."
Fought For Women
Mrs. Richardson also tales of another phase in Mrs. Munford's educational work - her fight as chairman of the Co-ordinate College League for the admission of women to the University of Virginia.
"The struggle involved in opening state colleges to women offered incredible difficulties not yet anything like surmounted," Mrs. Richardson wrote.
"In 1910 Mrs. Munford gathered a little band followers about her and began working for a co-ordinate college for women at the University of Virginia. Her recruits came from the ranks of a little study group which meets regularly at her home for years.
"... Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Virginia Military Institute, the College of William and Mary, and the great University of Charlottesville, all supported by taxes, were for men exclusively; while the women had only the pitiable little normal schools. Mrs. Munford began work on the legislature in 1912. Failure, of course! Another failure in 1914. In 1916 the bill passed the Senate and was lost in the house. In 1918, if one man had not swapped his vote at the last minute, the bill would've passed. In 1920 the board of visitors open the graduate and professional schools to women.
"Through it all Mrs. Munford labored year in and year out. She spoke at one legislative hearing after another… The battle is not one. When it is… the laurels will belong to Mrs Mumford. The opening of the College of William and Mary to girls served temporarily to stay the agitators…"
Won 10-Hour Law
Friends also recall that Mrs. Munford took a leading part in advocating legislation to limit the hours of women workers in industry.
One of them yesterday said it was Mrs. Mumford strong argument before legislative committees that caused the passage of the law limiting hours of women workers to 10 a day – a law that was replaced by a new one in the 1938 assembly, which to create a limit of nine hours a day and 48 a week.
Mrs. Munford was one of the group of 10 who organized the Woman's Club of Richmond. She served for a number of years on the South Atlantic Field Committee of the Y.W.C.A. She also was a member of the board of the National Child Labor Committee and the National Consumers' League. She served on a commission on country life appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt, and went into the demonstration farm experimental work with Dr. Seaman A. Knapp of the Department of Agriculture.
Mrs. Munford became the first woman member of the Richmond School Board in 1919 and served in that office until 1931. In 1920 came her appointment as the first woman member of the board of the College of William and Mary. Six years later she became a member of the board of the University of Virginia.
She was a member of the board of the Virginia and Richmond League of Women Voters, member of the board of Fisk University from 1922 to 1928, member of the board of the National Urban League, member of the Council on Colored Work, National Y.W.C.A. She assisted in organizing the Virginia Industrial School for Delinquent Colored Girls.
During the World War Mrs. Mumford served as chairman for Virginia of the Women's Committee, National Council of Defense; was a member of the Virginia Agricultural Council of Safety and of the National War Work Council Y.W.C.A. She was a member of the D.A.R., an honorary member of the American Association of University Women and an honorary member of Alpha Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa at William and Mary. She was also a member of the Cosmopolitan Club of New York, and of the Virginia Historical Society. As a member of the board of the Child Study Association of America, she organized the first child study group in Virginia. Through her efforts an appropriation from the Laura Spellman fund was made for this work.
Mrs. Munford is survived by her daughter, Mrs. Hoogewerff; her son, Mr. Munford; two sisters, Mrs. George B. McAdams and Mrs. Elizabeth H. Bowie of Richmond; a brother, James R. Branch of Florida, and two grandchildren.
Funeral services will be held at 5 p.m. Monday afternoon in St. Paul's Episcopal Church, of which she was a member. Dr. Beverley D. Tucker, rector of St. Paul's, will conduct the service, assisted by Dr. Beverley M. Boyd, rector of Grace and Holy Trinity Church.
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