YWCA of Summit County
& Youth Programs
Gracious in manner
Impartial in judgment
Ready for service
Loyal to friendsReaching toward the best
Earnest in purpose
Seeking the beautiful
Eager for knowledge
Reverent to God
Victorious over self
Ever dependent
Sincere at all times.
-- Lofty goals for any Girl Reserve; but with the help of church and school, supportive family and committed adviser, a Girl Reserve could accomplish almost anything.
The Girl Reserves -- later called the Y Teens and now Girl Power -- inculcated a sense a civic responsibility, even as girls learned new skills, socialized at dances with boys, rough housed at camp or just enjoyed each other's company. At the same time, the Akron organization mentored a new generation of women and ensured its future growth by including teens as members of the YWCA.
The Girl Reserves did not begin in Akron until 1918. By then, the Akron YWCA had already established a long record of involvement with the youth of the city.
Apparently girls were involved with the Akron YWCA almost from its beginning. Some of the first pictures of the members of the Akron organization included girls.
However, organized programming for the younger set did not start until 1906. That year, as a condition of receiving the Grace House, the YWCA assumed the Union Charity's "Penny Savings Program" for children. In 1908, the Akron organization established its own programming for youth. The Akron YW established its Industrial School, for "poor" girls 6 to 16. Designed to "provide instruction and training for young girls in any branch of Domestic Service and Household Art," the school met every Saturday. By 1909, the industrial school already had an enrollment of 327.
Early programs also were designed to channel the energy of the youngsters into physical activities. Girls had access to the gymnasium and the pool soon after they opened. The Akron organization also arranged for a summer camp in Cleveland from 1908-1911.
Activities stepped up in 1912, when the Akron YW hired its first secretary to work with juniors. That same year, Akron was part of the first wave of YWCA groups that introduced the Camp Fire Girls into the schools.
Akron's YWCA soon became involved in the high schools with a teen program uniquely the city's.
Organized in 1914, Censowe was a teen organization of female students from Central, South and West high schools. East High School teens were included later.
Finally, in 1918, the Akron YWCA established its own Girl Reserves organization into the city. Open to girls 12 to 18, the Girl Reserves quickly became popular with the teens of the city. The early Girl Reserves were not just high school students. Like many other cities at the time, Akron had a large number of teens that worked in shops and factories. The Akron YW had started a Young Employed Girls club earlier and this group was converted to one of the many Girl Reserve organizations in the city.
By 1920, Girl Reserves groups were organized in the city's high schools. Churches organized their own clubs. Younger girls formed Girl Reserves Triangle clubs in the grade schools.
These early Girl Reserves clubs reflected the socio-economic diversity within the city. They did not, however, reflect the city's racial and ethnic diversity.
Not until 1920 did the Akron YWCA commit to organizing "Foreign and Colored Girl Reserves." African-American clubs were organized at the "Colored Community House" (the Bluebird chapter) and Seiberling and Howe grade schools.
Seiberling school had two Girl Reserves clubs -- one for whites and one for African Americans. The organization of the Girl Reserves clubs in the city reflected the segregation within the city of Akron itself. The integration of the Girl Reserves would not take place until later and would force changes on the entire Akron YWCA.
Although all of the volunteer advisers worked within the same general guidelines to let every girl "discover and round out personal interest," each individual club came up with activities that interested its members.
Most clubs tried to find a balance of "work, play, service and inspiration," the "ideal Christian citizenship." At first, that meant that the clubs organized their activities around the war and doing projects to help the war effort. After the armistice ending World War I, the clubs settled into Bible study, crafts, self improvement, physical fitness, socializing and community outreach projects.
Although the clubs were based in individual schools, churches and community houses, the Akron YWCA nurtured a city-wide Girl Reserves movement by sponsoring activities that brought the teens together at the downtown YWCA headquarters, first at Grace House and then at the large, state-of-the-art building on South High Street. There, the Girl Reserves offices were on the sixth floor, with easy access to the gym and the pool.
Girl Reserves joined the Akron YWCA organization as junior members and only paid 50 cents a year membership dues at first. The Girl Reserves quickly became one of the most popular parts of Akron's YWCA.
By 1923, the Girl Reserves had almost 1200 members. The tremendous success of the Girl Reserves set Akron apart from YWCA organizations nationwide. In 1923, Akron had 1,176 Girl Reserves, compared to 326, the average number in YW associations across the nation. The Akron Girl Reserves were just beginning to grow. By 1926, Akron's Girl Reserves membership had doubled; and by the 1940s, it had doubled again.
As junior members, most Girl Reserve members could take advantage of all the facilities and programs the Akron YWCA offered. Beginning in 1922, the white members of the Girl Reserves could pack up and participate in a 10-day adventure at summer camp, at Camp Arrowhead at Stewart Lake, near Kent. For approximately eight weeks a summer, waves of grade school and high school girls came for the Bible study, swimming, hiking, boating, games, game fires and general tomfoolery associated with summer camp.
In 1925, the Akron YWCA acquired land on Lake Erie and created an outdoor paradise for school girls and young employed women. With a lodge, cottage and cabins, Camp YaWaCa became a welcome summer destination for Akron girls ages 8 to 18. The 11-acre campsite was purchased after James Chamberlain, the superintendent of the U.S. Stoneware Co., donated stock to the Akron YWCA. Chamberlain's gift was one of the few sizeable ones given the Akron organization. Camp YaWaCa was later expanded to 53 acres to protect the campers from "peepers and marauders."
At Camp YaWaCa there was lots to do -- from swimming to archery, from baseball to berry picking, from biking to Bible study, from camp-fires to ghost stories. Not everyone, however, was included in the fun. When it opened, Camp YaWaCa, like so many of the YWCA's facilities in Akron, did not admit African Americans. Camp YaWaCa remained segregated for another two decades. In 1945, the first African Americans came as part of the inter-racial senior week activities at the camp. In the summer of 1947, a small number of African Americans came as campers. Camp YaWaCa would remain integrated until it closed.
The integration of Camp YaWaCa was only a part of the changes whirling around the YWCA of Akron after World War II and the Girl Reserves were at the epicenter.
Organized initially along racial lines, Akron's Girl Reserves balanced the segregation and racism in the city against national YWCA's provisions that encouraged integration. By 1929, Girl Reserves were mandated to "work with the teen-age girl, irrespective of creed or race...." By the mid 1940s, the Girl Reserves had a small albeit growing membership in the African-American community -- 110 out of the 4925 Girl Reserves across the city. The largest number of these African Americans were members of all-black Girl Reserves clubs but some had affiliated with school and church clubs that had primarily a white membership.
This posed a real problem for the Akron YWCA that allowed access to facilities on a racial basis. Blacks and whites were not allowed to use the gym or the pool together. This meant that members of an integrated club could not swim together. Through petitions and pressure, the Girl Reserves pushed the Akron YWCA and its board to integrate the pool.
In 1943, Girl Reserves circulated petitions that read: "I believe that all girls belonging to the Girl Reserves should have the same rights, regardless of race or color. I believe that since the white Girl Reserves have the use the Y.W. pool, the colored girls shouldn't be minus the privilege." The Girl Reserves won their fight in 1944 before the YWCA fully integrated its facilities.
Although the Girl Reserves were able to gain members in the African-American community, they were never able to bring in many immigrant girls into their clubs.
The Girl Reserves remained, primarily, an organization of native-born girls. Immigrants or children of immigrants tended to affiliated with the youth groups of the International Institute.
There were many reasons for this.
Some of it dealt with how the Girl Reserves first attempted to draw the immigrant girls into the organization. In 1920, immigrant girls were invited to only join the "Foreign and Colored Girl Reserves."
Some of it dealt with language difficulties. Many of the immigrants were from Eastern Europe and English was not their first language. Some of it dealt with not feeling at ease with the Girl Reserves or their activities.
But for whatever reason, the immigrant teens veered toward the nationality-based youth groups at the International Institute.
Thus, the youngsters from Hungary or children of Hungarian parents affiliated with the Hungarian Girls Club; Russian girls joined the Russian Girls Club or the Russian Young People's Association; the Ukrainian teens organized around the Ukranian Girls Club.
In 1943 at the height of World War II, lots of things changed for the Girl Reserves. First, their name. The Girl Reserves got a breezier, more modern name, "Y Teens." Second, their administrative organization. The Y Teens were still based in the schools but were advised by faculty members "with the active support" of volunteers. Third, the programming. Although still committed to the principles or "Christian citizenship," the group became more progressive in its programming, dealing with many of the pressing issues facing teens of the day. In response to the "many hasty and 'necessary' marriages," the Y-Teens started offering sex education for both their high school and grade school members. The instructor, a local woman doctor, was amazed at the inaccurate information that the youngsters -- and their mothers -- had about sex.
Akron's teenage social scene revolved around the Y Teens. Local bands played at the Y-Teen dances at the downtown YWCA. In the 1940s, the Y-Teen dances were the place to be.
The Akron YWCA offered other options as well. As part of the popular "canteen" activities during the late 1940s and early 1950s, the Akron YWCA experimented with an interracial El Patio Teen Canteen. The Canteen proved enormously successful, especially among African-American teens. As attendance increased among blacks, fewer and fewer white teens attended. That, however, was not what the YWCA board had in mind. Accordingly, the YWCA put on a quota, keeping African Americans to only one-fourth of El Patio's membership.
Throughout the 1940s, Akron's YWCA had a large dynamic membership among teens. During World War II, Y-Teen groups worked for the war effort, wrote letters to men away at work and did anything else they could to help. After the war, the Akron YWCA and its Y-Teen clubs -- located in 29 high schools and 23 grade schools in the area -- seemed to be in step with its young members with activities that ranged from the spiritual to the social, from the athletic to the academic.
The Girl Reserves, the Y Teens, the youth organizations of the International Institute fostered the connection between the Akron YWCA and the next generation of women. Other teens were brought in through the gymnasium, the pool, the dances and sports-related activities. But the heart of the connection between YWCA and teens was the Y-Teen clubs.
At the beginning of the 1950s, the ties were strong.
Y-Teen membership was high -- almost 4, 200 in 1950, which meant that teen membership accounted for almost half the Akron association's 10,883. Y-Teen clubs were located at almost all high schools and many grade/middle schools in the area. Most of those clubs offered a similar fare of cake decorating, millinery, dress making, baton twirling and charm classes.
But trouble was brewing beneath in the surface.
In the 1950s, the Y Teens faced their first real competition. After the bishop disavowed both the YMCA and the YWCA, Catholic high schools and grade schools girls affiliated with the CYO, Catholic Youth Organization, that offered similar programming, facilities and social opportunities as the YWCA. Both the YWCA and the Y Teen membership suffered as a result.
The more serious threat, however, came in the 1960s.
Y Teen clubs followed Akron families as they moved to the suburbs in both Summit and Portage counties. The high schools at Kent State, Tallmadge, Suffield, Hudson, Stow and Mogadore all organized their own Y-Teen clubs, administered through the central Akron YWCA organization.
The 1960s was also a time of tremendous social unrest and rebellion; but some Y-Teen groups seemed caught in a 1950s time warp, continuing a fare of charm courses and fashion shows. More were trying to make the clubs relevant to the teens and the times. Some clubs held dances that revolved around the popular musical groups of the day -- and drew hundreds as a result. Other clubs tried to make their members more socially conscious through service projects. The Cuyahoga Falls club adopted a Korean girl; Green explored interfaith issues with sessions focusing on the Jewish, Catholic and Protestant faith. Buchtel Y Teens did their best with projects with the Florence Crittenden and the Children's Detention Center.
The 1960s witnessed the decline of the Y Teens. In 1962, Y Teen clubs were in only 36 area schools, about half the number of 1950. By 1968, only 2800 teens at 16 schools participated in the Y Teens. The Y Teens may have been fading away in Akron and Summit County but they still had a role to play in the history of the YWCA locally and nationally. In 1970, a contingent of Summit County Y Teens went to the Houston convention where the One Imperative, which committed the YWCA to the elimination of racism, was adopted. At the convention, the Summit County teens joined others who demonstrated in support of the measure.
The Summit County contingent later worked with labor activist Caesar Chevez in his union's boycott of lettuce, according to one YWCA staffer. But that turned out to be one of the last bursts of energy from the Y Teens in Summit County. By the early 1970s, the Y Teens were gone, a victim of changing times, budget and staff cutbacks at the Akron YWCA and different alternatives in the high schools of the county.
The Akron YW did attempt to revive the Y Teens during the 1990s. In 1992, the program was reintroduced in a different form; teens, preteens and even boys were included. Although the program had been introduced into 18 schools and had some 1200 members by 1999, the YW had to scale it back after losing the grant that financially supported it.
Teens are still free to affiliate with the YWCA at reduce rates and use the organization's facilities, but they would no longer be the primary focus of special youth programming. Dealing with the realities of the working mother, the Akron YWCA placed its time, energy and money into child care, latch key programs and Girl Power! for the preadolescent.Photos courtesy of The University of Akron Archives
