| | LEVEL OF DESCRIPTION: | Fonds | | No.: | PR2440 | | TITLE: | Young Women's Christian Association, Edmonton fonds | | CREATOR: | Young Women's Christian Association. Edmonton | | DATE RANGE: | 1907-1993 | | EXTENT: | 6.00 m of textual records, ca. 120 photographs
| | ADMINISTRATIVE | | HISTORY/BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: | ADMINISTRATIVE
HISTORY/ BIOGRAPHICAL
SKETCH: The YMCA was founded in Edmonton in 1907 and celebrated its 100th anniversary of service with the community in 2007.
The mission of the YMCA is to create strong and inclusive communities valuing women's perspectives through leadership, advocacy and support for women and their families.
The YWCA was incorporated in 1907 by a special act of the provincial legislature. Since its foundation, the YWCA of Edmonton has made significant contributions to the social, economic, educational, and health dimensions of the province of Alberta. The programs and services offered by the organization have, over a century, continually adapted to meet the changing needs of the larger community.
During its first few decades, in a frontier city unprepared for an influx of single women, the organization assisted thousands of rural and immigrant women who came to Edmonton to further their education or seek employment. In addition to providing safe and economical housing for "unattached" women, the YWCA Travelers Aid workers, for more than sixty years, met every scheduled train and bus to offer support and assistance to women visiting or relocating to the city. With the rapidly expanding population of the west came homelessness, prostitution and separated families, the YWCA provided food, shelter, employment information, and training during the first decades of service.
A post-war emphasis on athleticism and the outdoors led to the YWCA opening its first swimming pool and gymnasium and organizing a women's camping program at Seba Beach starting in 1916. In the third decade of service, during the Great Depression of the 1930s, thousands of people passed through Alberta and Edmonton as they searched for work. The YWCA worked to provide food and accommodation, and training for unemployed women and girls.
Formerly a community with an agriculture-based economy, the city became a strategic centre for northern military operations, including the Alaska Highway. From 1937 to the late 1940s, YWCA volunteers and staff met the needs of service men's wives, women in the military, and other women in the workforce by providing daycare services, social clubs, and a housing registry.
During the late sixties and well into the seventies, thousands of young people traveled across the country in large numbers, creating the "transient youth" era in the life of the YWCA. The residence stretched to accommodate the increased need and several cooperative youth hostels were developed. In 1976, the YWCA opened the building on 100 Avenue which provided much-needed sport and recreational facilities, daycare, and affordable housing for women. In the 1980s, with the growing awareness of the needs of persons with disabilities, the YWCA began to offer leisure and recreational opportunities for adults with disabilities as well as relief rare for families caring for a child with a disability. The YWCA of Edmonton continues in the new millennium to provide core services to Alberta women and their families.
| | SCOPE AND CONTENT: |
The fonds consists of minutes of Boards meetings, general annual reports, reports on programmes offered by the organization, correspondence, minutes of meetings including minutes from the Social Action, Public Relations, Advisory, Personnel, Cafeteria, Programme Committees, and minutes from the Out-door Recreation, Health and Physical Education, Acquatics, Fitness Centre, Child care, Special Services and Extension sub-committees; financial records, material collected to write the book "Retrospect: : the Edmonton YWCA 1957-1991", photographs and newspaper clippings.
| | LANGUAGE NOTE: | The material is in English. | | GENERAL NOTE: | Information for the administrative history was taken from the records and from the web site http://www.ywcaofedmonton.org visited on April 1, 2008.
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