YMCA History

1851 - First YMCA in the United States is founded in Boston by a sea captain and missionary, Thomas Sullivan. With six colleagues, Sullivan lead the first meeting on December 29, 1851 at the Old South Church in Boston.

1853 - One of the first YMCAs was also one of the earliest African-American organizations in the United States. Formerly enslaved, Anthony Bowen founded a black YMCA in Washington D.C., in 1853.

1858 - The Charleston (S.C.) YMCA starts the first Y women's auxiliary.

1861 - When the Civil War began at Fort Sumter in Charleston, S.C., YMCAs in the North formed the United States Christian Commission to aid the soldiers. More than 5,000 volunteers, known as "delegates" (including poet Walt Whitman and Dwight Moody) worked in the battlefields, hospitals, army camps, and POW compounds. The Christian Commission was the predecessor of the Armed Services YMCA.

1879 - The first Sioux Indian YMCA was organized in the Dakota Territory by Thomas Wakeman, son of Chief Little Crow.

1885 - On September 29, 1885 the world's first indoor swimming pool is dedicated at the Brooklyn Central YMCA.

1891 - James Naismith, an instructor at YMCA's Springfield College, invents basketball as an indoor, winter sport. He went on to coach the sport at the University of Kansas for nine years and is still the only coach in the school's history with a losing record: 53 wins and 55 losses. James Naismith also invented the football helmet.

1895 - William Morgan blended basketball, tennis, and handball to create what would be known as Volleyball and held the first game in 1895 at the Massachusetts' Holyoke YMCA.

1907 - World's first group swim lessons begin under the instruction of George Corsan at the Detroit YMCA.

1918 - In World War I, the YMCA raises a total of $235 million, mostly in small voluntary contributions, for war relief.

1941 - United Service Organizations (USO) is formed by YMCA and five other national service organizations.

1950 - YMCA volunteer Joe Sobek invents racquetball at the Greenwich (Conn.) YMCA.

1960's - Many black YMCAs became meeting places and rallying points for the Civil Rights movement. Leaders Vernon Jordan, Maynard Jackson, and Martin Luther King, Jr. all grew up at the historic Butler Street YMCA in Atlanta.

1976 - YMCA launches nationwide cardiovascular health program.

1992 - YMCAs conduct the first national Healthy Kids Day to encourage healthy development of youth. It becomes and annual April event.

1994 - YMCAs create the Character Development thrust in response to declining morality and lack of values education. The YMCA formally defines character as the demonstration of four core values: caring, honesty, respect, responsibility.

More than 2,400 neighborhood YMCAs today serve over 20 million members in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Collectively, YMCAs are the largest not-for-profit organizations in the nation and benefit from the leadership of more than 600,000 volunteers.

Although the organization was born 150 years ago as the "Young Men's Christian Association," today, half of YMCA members are female and half are over the age of 18. The mission of the YMCA is based on Christian principles shared by all faiths and practiced each day in YMCAs across the United States and in 130 countries around the world.

Information acquired from YMCA in America, 1851-2001: A History of Accomplishment Over 150 years.
YMCA of the USA, 101 N. Wacker Dr., Chicago, IL 60606.