YMCA Founded
The Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) was founded on June 6, 1844, in London by George Williams, initially with just 12 members. The organization was created to provide a supportive community for young men migrating to urban areas during the Industrial Revolution, offering spiritual guidance and constructive activities. Within a few years, the YMCA expanded internationally, with the first American branch established in Boston in 1851. The organization grew rapidly, emphasizing not only religious activities but also education, physical fitness, and social recreation, adapting its focus to meet the needs of various community groups over time.
In parallel, the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) emerged in England in 1855, addressing similar challenges faced by women during the Industrial Revolution. The YWCA aimed to provide housing, job training, and recreational opportunities, evolving to support the rights and needs of working women. Both organizations have played significant roles in their respective communities, advocating for social reform and adapting their services to respond to changing societal needs. Today, the YMCA and YWCA continue to thrive, maintaining millions of members globally while promoting health, education, and social justice.
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YMCA Founded
YMCA Founded
Although it consisted of only 12 members at its birth in London on June 6, 1844, the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) was destined to become a significant international organization. Within seven years, a YMCA was founded in Boston, Massachusetts. Today, the YMCA has millions of members throughout the United States and the world. Its sister organization, the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA), had its beginnings in England 11 years after the YMCA. The YWCA also has millions of members in the United States and throughout the world.
George Williams was the founder of the YMCA. He was born on October 11, 1821. At the age of 15 he left his farm home in Dulverton, Somerset, to work in London. With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, many young men migrated from rural areas to newly developing urban areas, which were ill prepared to cope with the influx. Such communities offered little in the way of constructive diversions or intellectual stimulation, and large numbers of those who were separated from their families were drawn to gambling halls, pubs, and brothels. Deeply disturbed by what he felt to be a general lack of religion, Williams began to organize prayer meetings for his London co-workers and in some nearby villages. As enthusiasm grew, a Bible class was started, and missionary and literary societies were formed. The owner of the dry-goods firm (George Hitchcock and Company) for which Williams was a clerk became a supporter and made larger quarters in the shop available for meetings. Meanwhile, prayer groups had developed among workers in other companies.
On June 6, 1844, Williams proposed to a meeting of members of his and another business house that they form a “Society for Improving the Spiritual Condition of Young Men engaged in the drapery and other trades.” The proposal was unanimously approved, and the name Young Men's Christian Association was given to the society thus created. A reading room was established to serve as the center for its activities, which consisted primarily of discussions, lectures, personal counseling, Bible study, and prayer meetings. The society grew rapidly, and branches were formed in various cities. By 1851 there were 24 YMCAs, with a total of 2,700 members, functioning in Great Britain.
The founders' enthusiasm propelled the movement across the English Channel to Europe. It was so widely accepted that 30,360 young men were active in 397 YMCAs in seven European countries by 1854. The international body later known as the World Alliance of Young Men's Christian Associations was formed the following year in Paris, during the first world conference of YMCAs. Williams, who remained active in the association, was knighted for his work by Queen Victoria in 1894, eleven years before his death.
Among the first YMCAs to be formed outside Great Britain was the one founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1851. Upon reading an article about the London YMCA, Thomas V. Sullivan, a retired sea captain who had involved himself with religious work and was making news as a “missionary-at-large” on the Boston waterfront, knew he had come to the end of his search for an instrument through which to broaden his work. He brought together more than 30 young men to discuss his idea, and on December 29, 1851, in the chapel of the historic Old South Meeting House, the Boston YMCA was founded on the same principles as those of the London society.
Within three years 48 other YMCAs had developed across the country, and they continued to multiply. In 1854 the YMCAs of Canada (where a YMCA had been formed in Montreal a month before the one in Boston) and those of the United States joined in a cooperative international committee. Not until 1924 did the American associations organize their own separate national council (though the international committee also continued to function).
The purposes of American YMCAs broadened considerably beginning in the late 1850s, when classes in language, music, and gymnastics were first offered. Branches were organized to serve special groups, such as railroad workers, members of the armed forces, college students, and increasingly large numbers of rural young men who were moving to the cities. The maintenance of youth hostels and residences became an important service. Around 1900, YMCA night schools and classes in industrial education were instituted. Physical and social recreation were stressed. Physical fitness became a byword, and the YMCA assumed a position of leadership in offering swimming and water safety instruction. These various activities have continued to the present day, and in modern times have been expanded to included such things as substance abuse counseling.
The founding of the YWCA had an impetus similar to that of the founding of the YMCA. In 1855 two organizations dedicated to improving the situation of women were formed by women in England. The General Female Training Institute was founded by Mary Jane Kinnaird (Lady Kinnaird) primarily to house nurses returning from the Crimean War. Concern for the spiritual needs of all women prompted Emma Robarts to form the Prayer Union. In 1859 the two merged as the YWCA.
The plight of young women drawn to the cities as a result of the Industrial Revolution was just as bad as that of the men. In the United States their need for guidance, housing, and opportunities for recreation soon brought about the founding of the first American YWCA. Its genesis was in the Prayer Union Circle, almost immediately renamed the Ladies' Christian Association, formed by Caroline D. Roberts in 1858 in New York City.
Eight years later a YWCA was established in Boston, and thereafter the movement spread rapidly, as the YMCA had for a number of years. Help in securing jobs was another need that was soon met, through placement services and vocational training. Classes were offered in penmanship, bookkeeping, stenography, sewing-machine operation, practical nursing, and, when it was decided that females were strong enough, typing (or “typewriting” as it was called). Other activities included group singing and classes in astronomy, physiology, and calisthenics. Swimming became a major activity in the 1890s and remains an important part of the extensive health, physical education, and recreation program.
Establishment of the first YWCA summer camp, Sea Rest, at Asbury Park, New Jersey, in 1874, made inexpensive vacations possible for working women. Today, the YWCA also maintains many day camps and child-care centers. It was, in fact, a pioneer in the field of day nurseries.
As circumstances and needs have changed, the concerns and activities of the YWCA have changed in emphasis, though not in purpose. In its attempt to improve conditions for working women, the YWCA was a leader in advocating an eight-hour working day, prohibition of night work, and the right of labor to organize. It was also an early advocate of unemployment insurance, and later it supported the Equal Rights Amendment. A number of independent organizations had their birth in the YWCA, among them the National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs.