Partner Frances Perry
Queer Places:
Columbia University (Ivy League), 116th St and Broadway, New York, NY 10027
Sunset Memorial Park, 1701 Austin Hwy, San Antonio, TX 78218, United States
Winnifred Crane Wygal (August 24, 1884 - July 1972) was born on August 25, 1884, in Springfield, Missouri, as the daughter of Frank Wygal, a wagon maker,
and Katie A. Bigelow Wygal. She pursued her undergraduate education at Drury College, graduating in 1906, before continuing her studies at
Columbia University and the University of Chicago Divinity School, where she completed a master's degree in history and economics in 1912. She furthered
her theological education at Union Theological Seminary, studying alongside prominent thinkers such as Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich.
Wygal built a distinguished career as an American theologian, writer, author, lecturer, and national staff member for the Young Women’s Christian
Association. Her involvement with the YWCA began in 1911, and she served on its professional staff from 1918 through 1944, starting with her work on the
War Work Council. From 1922 to 1935, she acted as the national executive of the YWCA's Student Council, later joining the Laboratory Division in 1935 and
co-chairing the Fletcher Farm Seminar on Religion with Gregory Vlastos. Concluding her formal tenure with the organization, she served as the Secretary
for Religious Resources in the Division of Community YWCAs from 1939 to 1944. Alongside her YWCA duties, she chaired the editorial board of The
Intercollegian, the national magazine of the YWCA's Student Council, and remained active with the worldwide Student Christian Movement as well as being a
founding member of the Fellowship of Socialist Christians alongside her colleague Rose Terlin.
A widely traveled individual who viewed travel as a means to "broaden the psychological space around" her, Wygal embarked on extensive domestic and
international journeys. During a year of sabbatical travels in 1927 and 1928, she toured the Middle East, visited India where she met Mahatma Gandhi and
Rabindranath Tagore, and attended the World Student Federation Conference in Mysore. Later, in 1937, she traveled to England to attend a World Council of
Churches conference at Oxford, and she continued to tour as a lecturer and community organizer well into her retirement.
In addition to her theological and organizational work, Wygal has a notable connection to the authorship of the famous Serenity Prayer. While the
prayer is traditionally attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr, research by Fred R. Shapiro published in The New Yale Book of Quotations pointed to Wygal as the
coiner who combined elements attributed to Niebuhr with significant components of her own devising during the 1930s.
Regarding her personal life and LGBTQ history, Wygal’s legacy is preserved within archives such as the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University. She
maintained a significant romantic relationship with Frances Perry that began in the 1910s and lasted into the 1940s and beyond, with Perry appearing
frequently throughout Wygal’s personal diaries. Wygal passed away in July 1972 at the age of 87 and was buried at Sunset Memorial Park in San Antonio,
Bexar County, Texas.
References:
- Winnifred Wygal Papers – Schlesinger Library, Harvard Radcliffe Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts (includes personal diaries, correspondence, and biographical documentation detailing her life, travels, and relationship with Frances Perry).
- Winnifred Wygal Papers – Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College Special Collections, Northampton, Massachusetts (comprises professional and public records, notebooks, administrative files, and writings spanning 1918 to 1972).
- Wygal, Winnifred. On the Edge of Tomorrow. New York: The Woman's Press, 1933.
- Wygal, Winnifred. We Plan Our Own Worship Services: Business girls practice the act and the art of group worship. New York: The Woman's Press, 1940.
- Shapiro, Fred R. "The Origin of the Serenity Prayer." The Chronicle Review (April 28, 2014).
- Shapiro, Fred R. The New Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021.
- "The Homosocial Gospel: Winnifred Wygal and the Women Couples of the Young Women's Christian Association of the USA." Religion and American Culture (Cambridge University Press, 2025).
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