Benjamin F. Crawford

CRAWFORD, Benjamin Franklin.  b. Madison County, Ohio, 12 May 1881; d. Delaware, Ohio, 20 June 1976. Christened after the great American philosopher, Crawford taught school before attending Ohio Wesleyan University (BA, 1906); Boston University (STB, 1909); Dennison University (1917-18); and the University of Pittsburgh (PhD, 1937). Crawford’s dissertation, ‘Changing Conceptions and Motivations of Religion as Revealed in One Hundred Years of Methodist Hymnology, 1836-1935’, was a study of the authorized hymnals of the Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC) 1836, 1849, and 1878; the 1905 Methodist Hymnal produced by the MEC and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (MECS); and the 1935 Methodist...