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YWCA Historic "Firsts" & Other Milestones
1858 First women's organization forms: "Ladies' Christian Association": New York City
1859 YWCA name first used: Boston
1860 First boarding house for female students, teachers, and factory workers: New York City
1864 First U.S. day-nursery: Philadelphia
1866 First travelers' aid initiative: Boston
1869 In the face of "unreasonable prejudice and misinterpretation," The Retreat, first unwed mothers' residence: Cleveland
1870 First typewriting instruction for women: New York City
1872 First sewing machine classes: New York City
1872 First employment bureau: New York City
1873 First student YWCA: Normal University, Normal, IL
1874 First (and only) low-cost summer "resort" for employed women: Philadelphia; dedicated by President Ulysses S. Grant
1889 First African-American YWCA branch: Dayton, OH
1890 First YWCA for American Indian young women: Chilocco, Oklahoma
1891 First public cafeteria: YWCA, Kansas City
1893 First training school for practicing nursing: Brooklyn, NY
1894 YWCA of the U.S.A. joins Great Britain, Sweden, and Norway to found World YWCA; YWCA extends to India and China, and first American Secretary (director) to work abroad arrives in India
1898 Seven African-American Students Association affiliates formed
1903 First home study courses, in Southern cotton mills
1906 YWCA of the U.S.A., National Board incorporates in New York; first organization to introduce "positive health" concept, sex education in all health programming
1908 First indsutrial federation of clubs to train girls in self-government
1909 First Secretary (director) works with African-American colleges; in under a year, such student YWs double
1910 Fifty-seven branches created to help immigrant women
1911 Bilingual instruction featured in new YWCA International Institutes for immigrant families
1911 Resolution to support passage of minimum wage law for women
1913 YWCA National Board creates Commission on Sex Education
1913 First national conference grounds for women: 30-acre YWCA Asilomar Conference Grounds opens in Pacific Grove, CA, designed by architect Julia Morgan
1913 Eva Bowles appointed first African-American Secretary to work with local YW Associations
1913 First Commission of Social Morality (sex education)
1915 First interracial conference in the U.S. South: Louisville
1915 Hollywood Studio Club, YW residence for aspiring actresses, opens in Los Angeles
1916 First English-as-a-second-language classes: New York, NY
1917 First women's organization permitted in a U.S. Army camp
1917 First group to send professionals (433) overseas to provide administrative support for U.S. armed forces (Europe)
1918 Womans Press, a YWCA publishing house, established
1918 To "cultivate an attitude of honest, open, scientific interest in the subject of sex," YWCA's Social Morality program becomes the official Lecture Bureau of the Division on Social Hygiene, U.S. Department of War
1918 U.S. Ordinance Department invites YWCA to help 1.5 million women working in war plants; 20 service centers set up near munitions factories
1918 Seventeen YWCA-run hostess houses operate as receration and service center for segregated negro troops
1918 YWCA consolidates girls' work into single movement, Girl Reserves
1919 YWCA convenes and finances first meeting of women doctors: International Conference of Women Physicians. For six weeks, these physicians from 32 countries consider women's physical condition, emotional health, and immature attitude toward sex
1920 YWCA Convention votes to work for "an eight-hour law," prohibition of night work, and the right of labor to organize
1921 Grace Dodge Hotel completed: a Washington, DC residence intially designed to house women war workers
1922 First National Assembly of Industrial Women: Hot Springs, AR
1924 First women's pension fund: YWCA Retirement Fund
1924 First African-American woman elected to National Board of the YWCA
1930 First National Conference on Unemployment: New York City
1932 Local YWCAs urged by YW Convention action "to foster right public opinion which shall be effective against the menace of lynching and mob violence in every form"
1933 YWCA, National Board sends Board member to Decatur, Alabama, to assess administration of justice in the Scottsboro case
1934 YWCA calls for legislation to provide for disseminating birth control information under authorized medical direction
1934 YWCAs are urged by Convention to encourage/support federal policies of interracial cooperation rather than segregation, and efforts to protect Negroes' exercise of basic civil rights
1936 First co-ed, intercollegiate, interracial student conference held in the South: Shaw University, Raleigh, NC
1936 National Students Conference calls on YWCA to reaffirm support of anti-lynching bill in Congress
1938 Students at YWCA Convention call for investigation of segregation and discrimination in YW and community life
1942 YWCA extends services to Japanese-American women and girls incarcerated in World War II Relocation Centers
1946 Convention adopts Interracial Charter: commits YWCA to work for end to racil injustice and full integration of black women in the "mainstream of Association life"
1949 Sharing common problems, business and industrial women form National Employed Women's Coordinating Assembly
1955 Convention commits local YWs and National Board to review progress toward inclusiveness of all women and decide on "concrete forward steps" to be taken by 1958 Convention
1955 YWCA National Student Assembly votes to try to persuade their college administration to outlaw fraternities and sororities that discriminate along racial lines
1960 Atlanta YWCA cafeteria opens to blacks, becoming the city's first desegregated public dining facility
1960 National Board reaffirms support of non-violent civil rights movement and of Student YWCA members involved in sit-ins
1963 YWCA participates in March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
1965 YWCA sets up Office of Racial Justice
1965 Student YWCA votes to oppose apartheid in South Africa and urges National Board to investigate YWCA investments
1967 Convention adopts constitutional amendment disaffiliating any YW not "fully integrated in policy and practice"
1967 Convention adopts first of three abortion resolutions leading to freedom of choice
1968 Associations support grape boycott, Operation Breadbasket, university disinvestment in South Africa, boycotting "war machine" companies
1970 Convention adopts "One Imperative: To eliminate racism wherever it exists and by any means necessary"
1974 YWCA sponsors Conference para Mujeres de Puertorriquenas
1974 Study program begun to interpret dimensions of international racism
1975 YWCA starts ENCORE program: exercise and support for women who have undergone breast cancer surgery
1976 Convention mandates empowerment of women, Third World people, and youth
1978 First grant given to a voluntary agency by U.S. Department of Commerce enables 250 YWCAs in 44 states to form network publicizing jobs for women in local public works projects
1979 Convention approves key programs for the '80s: multicultural concerns, affirmative action, and societal conditions affecting women and Third World persons
1980 YW continues working for Voting Rights Act, and preservation of federal, state, and local affirmative action programs
1981 For three years, National Board has been leading a service advocacy project for "endangered" teen women, involving six other youth-serving agencies and 20-plus YWCAs
1983 YWCA of the U.S.A. Leadership Development Center, conference, meeting, national training facility and media center, completed in Phoenix, AZ
1983 YWCA of the U.S.A. celebrates 125th anniversary
1985 Convention votes resources and assistance to support public measures to prevent unwanted adolescent pregnancy and childbirth among women of all ages and economic levels
1988 YWCA is first women's organization invited to join U.S. Olympic Committee, Multi-Sport Division
1989 YWCA leads "pro-choice" demonstration, March for Woman's Equality/Women's Lives
1990 Key civil rights leaders, public officials, and university and college representatives develop blueprint for racial justice training, at YWCA of the U.S.A. Racial Justice Convocation
1991 YWCA of the U.S.A. begins to expand ENCORE, its exercise and support program for women who have had breast cancer surgery. The program now includes early detection and screening, via a pilot program conducted with technical assistance from the National Cancer Institute
1992 YWCA organizes first National Day of Commitment to Eliminate Racism, responding to Rodney King beating/Los Angeles riots; the kick-off is a Washington, DC press conference; YWCAs nationwide take part
1992 First women's organization chosen by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to launch a partnership to combat breast cancer. Expanded Encore Plus program begin to make early detection available to medically underserved and minority women in communities served by the YWCA
1993 On its 135th anniversary, the first retrospective exhibition of the YWCA's contribution to life in the United States, opened at the National Museum for Women in the Arts in Washington, DC. Awards were given to Janet Reno, U.S. Attorney General and to Dorothy Height, President of the National Council of Negro Women. The exhibit will travel across the country during 1995 and 1996
1993 Second Annual National Day of Commitment to Eliminate Racism is observed with a Washington, DC/Capitol Hill press conference and activities by YWCAs nationwide
1994 YWCA of the U.S.A. appoints its first foreign-born Executive Director, Dr. Prema Mathai-Davis, a native of India
1994 YWCA expands Encore Plus to include cervical cancer prevention, and adds a new partner, Avon Products, Inc.
1994 Third Annual National Day of Commitment to Eliminate Racism attracts prominent speakers, including nearly a dozen members of Congress and leaders of civil rights, women's, and other community organizations
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