YMCA work with and by blacks began in 1853 when Anthony Bowen established the first ""colored"" association in Washington D.C. As Anthony Bowen's work in the 1850s indicates, African Americans embraced the YMCA early on. By the late 1860s, the YMCA found a firm foothold in the community with associations established in New York City, Philadelphi...
Creator:
National Council of the Young Men's Christian Associations of the United States of America. Colored Work Department.
Created:
1870 - 1949
Contributed By:
University of Minnesota Libraries, Kautz Family YMCA Archives.
Cover of a pamphlet containing the constitution and bylaws of the African American student YMCA organized in 1869 at Howard University in Washington D.C.
Creator:
Christian Association of Howard University
Created:
1870
Contributed By:
University of Minnesota Libraries, Kautz Family YMCA Archives.
Cornelius Vanderbilt II, favorite grandson of his grandfather, "Commodore" Vanderbilt, provided funds to establish the first railroad YMCA in New York City. Built in Grand Central Depot, at the time the world's largest rail facility, the Railroad Branch occupied two rooms in the Depot that opened in 1875. Vanderbilt, a devout Episcopalian, perso...
Created:
1870
Contributed By:
University of Minnesota Libraries, Kautz Family YMCA Archives.