YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION

YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION (YMCA). The first YMCA on North American soil was formed in Montreal on 25 November 1851, followed by one in Boston on 29 December 1851. Both were modeled on the YMCA founded by George Williams (1821–1905) in London on 6 June 1844. In 1855 the first YMCA World Conference reported fifty-five YMCAs in North America.

In 1853 the first African American YMCA was formed in Washington, D.C., by Anthony Bowen, a minister and former slave. For nearly a century YMCAs were segregated along racial lines, but in 1946 they began to desegregate, ahead of the nation.

In 1861 YMCAs split along North-South lines along with the rest of the nation, and membership declined as many young men joined the armies on both sides. Fifteen northern YMCAs formed the U.S. Christian Commission, offering its services to Union army soldiers and prisoners of war.

After the Civil War the YMCA regained organizational momentum and entered a phase of institutional expansion and proliferation of programs. The YMCA created new opportunities for Chinese immigrants in San Francisco (1875); for railroad workers in Cleveland (1872; YMCA Railroad Department, 1877); for Native Americans in Flandreau, South Dakota (1879); for industrial workers through the YMCA Industrial Department (1903); and for Japanese immigrants in San Francisco (1917). The organization named its first African American secretaries, William A. Hunton (1863–1916) and Jesse E. Moorland (1863–1940), in 1888 and 1898, respectively, and formed a Colored Work Department in 1923. In 1889 the YMCA began to send its secretaries abroad to spread the movement, focusing especially on China, Japan, and India.

In the United States the YMCA began to extend its concern with men's souls to include their bodies. This departure was captured by Luther Halsey Gulick (1865– 1918) in his 1889 design of the YMCA's triangle logo inscribed with the words "spirit," "mind," "body." This approach, called "muscular Christianity," generated some of the YMCA's lasting contributions to U.S. culture. For example, in 1891 James Naismith invented basketball at the YMCA's Springfield, Massachusetts, Training School, and in 1895 the YMCA instructor William Morgan invented volleyball.

During both world wars the YMCA, under the leadership of John R. Mott (1865–1955), supported the U.S. war effort, offering religious, recreational, and relief work to soldiers, prisoners of war, and refugees. In World War I women's involvement in YMCAs grew as 5,145 women assisted as volunteer workers at home and abroad. In World War II the YMCA established outreach work in the ten internment camps in which the government detained Japanese Americans. During the war YMCAs administered relief work to 6 million prisoners of war in thirty-six countries. In recognition of the YMCA's effort with war refugees, Mott was awarded the Nobel Prize for peace in 1946.

After 1945 the YMCA continued to expand as an institution, but even high-ranking YMCA officials noticed that the movement's ideas and approaches were in need of revision. After 1975 the organization regained momentum. As Americans became more health conscious, the association's physical program took center stage. By the 1980s and 1990s the YMCA had rediscovered its earlier focus on character building, seeking to encourage positive values and behavior among American youths.

Following World War II the YMCA became a community service organization, integrated along race and gender lines. At the beginning of the twenty-first century 2,393 YMCAs served roughly 10,000 communities. Females constituted about half of the organization's 17 million members and about half of its staff.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Davidann, Jon Thares. A World of Crisis and Progress: The American YMCA in Japan, 1890–1930. Bethlehem, Pa.: Lehigh University Press, 1998.

Elfenbein, Jessica I. The Making of a Modern City: Philanthropy, Civic Culture, and the Baltimore YMCA. Gainesville, Fla.: University Press of Florida, 2001.

Gustav-Wrathall, John Donald. Take the Young Stranger by the Hand: Same-Sex Relations and the YMCA. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.

Hopkins, Charles Howard. History of the Y.M.C.A. in North America. New York: Association Press, 1951.

Mjagkij, Nina. Light in the Darkness: African Americans and the YMCA, 1852–1946. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1994.

Winter, Thomas. Making Men, Making Class: The YMCA and Workingmen, 1877–1920. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002.

Xing, Jun. Baptized in the Fire of Revolution: The American Social Gospel and the YMCA in China, 1919–1937. Bethlehem, Pa.: Lehigh University Press, 1996.