Anna M. Ranck, née Kammerer (1874-1956), was a missionary, educator, radio broadcaster, and a member of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) for over fifty years. Ranck held high-level positions at the local and national levels of the WCTU. She was the Director of Temperance and Missions for the National WCTU for ten years and held the title of Special Worker with Orientals for at least twenty years, during which she organized with Asian American members of the WCTU, supported Asian Americans displaced by Japanese internment, and held WCTU Interracial Friendship Meetings in efforts to integrate the ranks of the organization. Ranck was also secretary of the WCTU Home for Women in Los Angeles and a lead overseer of the Iota WCTU, the young women's branch of the organization. Ranck's career runs parallel to a period of growth and influence in the WCTU's history. During the early twentieth century, WCTU membership peaked at over 750,000 members and it became the largest women's organization in the United States. Ranck's involvement with the organization began during her thirty-year tenure as a missionary in Japan and China. During her mission trip, Ranck met her future husband, the Reverend Charles E. Ranck, a missionary in China. They married and moved to Hollywood, where they lived together for decades in organizing, teaching, and writing. Beginning in 1936, Ranck worked as the Director of the Radio Department of the WCTU of Southern California. Until at least 1944, she delivered lectures on air, eighteen of which are preserved in Ranck's papers, which include the broadcasts' scripts. The collection holds hundreds of newspaper clippings; two journals (1895 and circa 1930s) recording educational strategies for Bible instruction, as well as WCTU finance and membership records; eighteen radio broadcast scripts (plus multiple corrected drafts); twenty-three published records of national and southern California WCTU meetings (1930-1947); a ten-page typewritten document, dated 1932, arguing against the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment; and an additional scrapbook of hundreds of leaves of letters, clippings, and other records of Ranck's work as the director of missions for the WCTU, including her involvement with Asian American WCTU members in the United States. Also included in the collection are Ranck's business cards listing her positions in the WCTU, her citizenship documentation that she carried while on mission trips, and a copy of her obituary.

Anna M. Ranck, née Kammerer (1874-1956), was a missionary, educator, radio broadcaster, and a member of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) for over fifty years. Ranck was the Director of Temperance and Missions for the National WCTU for ten years and held the title of Special Worker with Orientals for at least twenty years, during which she organized with Asian American members of the WCTU, supported Asian Americans displaced by Japanese internment, and held WCTU Interracial Friendship Meetings in efforts to integrate the ranks of the organization. Ranck was also the secretary of the WCTU Home for Women in Los Angeles and a lead overseer of the Iota WCTU, the young women's branch of the organization.

0.65 Linear Feet 2 boxes

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