zPAR@ ` :TEXT ` ,Cratty, Mabel1868╨1928social workerBorn in Bellaire, Ohio, on June 30, 1868, Mabel Cratty attended public schools, studied briefly at Lake Erie Seminary (now College), and graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1890. She then taught school for several years at the Wheeling Female Seminary in West Virginia, in Kent, Ohio, and from 1892 in Delaware, Ohio, where from 1900 to 1904 she was principal of the high school. A growing interest in the work of the Young Women╒s Christian Association led to her becoming a member of the Ohio state committee of the YWCA in 1902. In 1904 Cratty moved to Chicago to take the post of associate general secretary of the American Committee of the YWCA. With the merging of the American Committee and the rival International Board in December 1906, Mabel Cratty became executive secretary of the home department under the unified National Board of the YWCA. A short time later she moved up to general secretary of the National Board, a post she retained for the rest of her life. As chief of the professional staff she bore the principal responsibility for developing and expanding the organization, and for such work she proved to be eminently suited. She was supported in everything by the president of the National Board, Grace H. Dodge, and by a rapidly growing staff, to whom she easily delegated authority and often credit for the work of the YWCA. Although Cratty kept herself largely from public notice, her leadership was so effective that by 1928 the number of YWCA branches in the country had increased from fewer than 300 to more than 1300 and its membership from some 143,000 to over 600,000; the national staff had grown from 14 people based in one room to 189 occupying a 12-story headquarters building in New York City. A measure of her influence was her success in keeping the YWCA in the forefront of involvement in social and internationalist issues during the disillusioned 1920s. She attended seven world YWCA conferences and visited branches in many nations. She was also active in the work of the Camp Fire Girls, the Institute of Pacific Relations (whose 1927 conference in Honolulu she attended), the National Committee on the Cause and Cure of War (which she helped Carrie Chapman Catt organize), and other groups. She died in New York City on February 27, 1928. ■styl ` ! ¬ 5¬ 5¬ ' !I F 5¬ G !I ² !I ▐ !I ü 5¬ é !I ╩ !I ▐ ▌ !I .link ` HYPR ² HYPR ╩ ▌
