Anna Mae Campbell Davis
1896-1991
Economics Research Assistant
Davis was UW Credit Union's first Board Treasurer. In the early years, the Treasurer position had many operational duties because the credit union could not afford to hire employees. Consequently, Davis was perhaps the most operationally involved among the credit union's founders and was the most often quoted in articles covering the credit union's first months of operation.
Davis enrolled at the University of Wisconsin in 1922 to pursue graduate studies. She earned both an M.A. degree and Ph.D. in economics under Professor John Commons who wrote, "Miss Campbell is one of the ablest students that have ever been in my classes."
Davis spent most of her career in the practice of law. She was the 81st woman admitted to the Wisconsin Bar and the only woman admitted in 1931. However, she had already been admitted to the Missouri Bar in 1918, graduating from the Kansas City School of Law the following year. During law school she worked as a legal assistant for attorney Frank P. Walsh on labor cases including packing house employees, miners, railway employees and waitresses. After receiving an A.B. degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, she briefly worked for a family relief agency and became district supervisor.
She was active in the Women's Suffrage Movement from 1914-1919, served in leadership capacities with the Women's Division of the Wisconsin Civil Works, the Wisconsin Committee on Women's Employment, the YWCA and the state board for the American Civil Liberties Union. In addition, for twenty years she was active in the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. Davis believed in the consumer cooperative movement, helping organize the Madison Consumers' Cooperative in 1934 and serving on its board until 1940. She also volunteered in support of the Cooperative Educational Council promoting awareness and understanding of cooperative organizations. In this connection, she was known to have interest in cooperative solutions for healthcare.
Throughout her life, she was deeply committed to the concerns of laborers, the poor and oppressed, the rights of women and the promotion of peace.