A History of the Los Angeles Young Men's Christian Association: The First Twenty Years

Abstract

The reputation of the Young Men's Christian Association as a move ment of international significance was firmly established by the year 1882, when the hundred and one year old community of Los Angeles, then with a population of over fourteen thousand, witnessed the found ing of its own association. In London some thirty-eight years before, on June 6, 1844, a group of twelve young men under the inspiring leadership of George Williams, a young man of twenty-three, formed the first YMCA in response to the need of improving the spiritual condition of young men in the drapery and other trades!'1 But in the larger sense, the energies of the newly formed association were neither wholly confined to devotional aspects nor to any particular group. The unprecedented population shift from rural to urban centers in England, conditioned by industrialization, produced an unhealthy en vironment. Inadequate wages, unemployment, and overcrowded tene ments were factors which greatly contributed to the corruption of moral and spiritual values. In such an environment the young men of England were easily recruited on the side of vice and depravity. George Williams and his associates came to the aid of thousands of misled young men. The movement soon caught fire and rapidly spread to many other cities in England, and by 1851 an association was estab lished in the United States in the city of Boston.2 On the fiftieth anni versary of the association, Queen Victoria conferred the honor of knighthood upon George Williams for his able and spirited leadership