Mary-Cooke Branch Munford

Mary-Cooke Branch Munford (September 15, 1865 – July 3, 1938) was a Virginia activist for women's rights, civil rights, women's suffrage, and education.

Mary-Cooke Branch was a native of Richmond; she was the youngest daughter of James Read Branch and Martha Louise Patterson Branch. Her family, of English extraction, was prominent in local affairs; her grandfather, Thomas Branch, had served in the Confederate Congress, and nephews included the writer James Branch Cabell and the Episcopal preacher Walter Russell Bowie. Her father drowned accidentally three years after her birth. She grew up in a rich family, but from a young age she became interested in social welfare issues, a passion which was only intensified after her marriage, on November 22, 1893, to Beverley Bland Munford, a lawyer who also was active in social issues. With him she would go on to have two children, Mary Safford in 1895 and Beverley Bland in 1899. In the 1890s she also founded a Saturday Afternoon Club, whose weekly meetings attracted women from the upper echelons of Richmond society. Once she saw that their interest was in discussing refined topics rather than problems of civic life she pulled back her involvement.

Education reform was an area of especial interest to Munford, and one to which she devoted much focus over her life. She held various positions of leadership in the Cooperative Education Association of Virginia, founded in 1903, and was one of five women involved in the foundation of the Richmond Education Association, which began life in 1901. She promoted public education, which at the time received scant attention and funding across most of Virginia. The Richmond group was an offshoot of a national organization, and focused mainly on rural parts of the state. At its yearly conferences, members would often tour African-American educational institutions in the Southern United States, such as the Hampton Institute.

Munford had been educated in both Richmond and New York, but regretted the fact that she had not been permitted to attend college despite her deep desire. Consequently, she worked to improve access to higher education for women. She attempted, via the Co-ordinate Colleague League, to found a coordinate college at the University of Virginia dedicated to the education of white women. Legislation was introduced in the Virginia General Assembly, but defeated through fierce opposition, mainly through alumni of the University. Nevertheless, Munford went on to become a member of the University's Board of Visitors in 1926 – the third woman to serve in that role – and after her death a building on campus was christened in her memory. She saw greater success in convincing the College of William and Mary to open its doors to women in 1918, and in March 1920 she became the first woman to serve on that school's Board of Visitors. The same year she joined the Richmond School Board, becoming the first woman to sit on that body as well. Munford also worked to improve opportunities for teacher training in the Commonwealth. In 1931 she managed to persuade Richmond's school board to reverse its policy discriminating against married women serving as teachers in the city's schools.

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