Crowd at YMCA (c. 1916-1918)

Item Information

Title:
Crowd at YMCA (c. 1916-1918)
Description:
This lantern slide shows a large group of soldiers and war workers seated in rows at the YMCA in Brownsville, Texas. The building has high ceilings and exposed wooden support beams.
Creator:
Smith's Studio (San Antonio, TX)
Date:
[1916?–1918?]
Format:
Photographs
Location:
Springfield College Archives and Special Collections
Collection (local):
College Archives Digital Collections
Series:
Lantern Slide Collection
Subjects:
Young Men's Christian Association of North America
World War, 1914-1918
YMCA
Brownsville (Tex.)
Lantern slides
Soldiers
War work
Banquet halls
Extent:
3.25x3.25 in
Link to Item:
https://cdm16122.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15370coll2/id/3575
Terms of Use:
Text and images are owned, held, or licensed by Springfield College and are available for personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that ownership is properly cited. A credit line is required and should read: Courtesy of Springfield College, Babson Library, Archives and Special Collections. Any commercial use without written permission from Springfield College is strictly prohibited. Other individuals or entities other than, and in addition to, Springfield College may also own copyrights and other propriety rights. The publishing, exhibiting, or broadcasting party assumes all responsibility for clearing reproduction rights and for any infringement of United States copyright law.
Contact host institution for more information.
Publisher:
Springfield College
Language:
English
Notes:
Brownsville, the county seat of Cameron County, is on the Rio Grande at the southern tip of Texas. Although the site was explored as early as the seventeenth century, the first settlers did not arrive until the latter part of the eighteenth century. The region was only sparsely populated when United States troops arrived in early 1846. When the United States declared war in 1917, the YMCA immediately volunteered its support. The Association assumed military responsibilities on a scale that had never been attempted by a nonprofit, community-based organization, and it was at the conclusion of the war that the military began to institutionalize the massive human services work carried out by the YMCA. At the end of World War I, William Howard Taft wrote: “The American Young Men's Christian Association in its welfare work served between four and five millions of American soldiers and sailors, at home and overseas. As General Pershing has said, it conducted nine-tenths of the welfare work among the American forces in Europe. Moreover, alone among American welfare societies, this organization, first and last, ministered to not less than nineteen millions of the soldiers of the Allied Armies and extended its helpful activities to over five millions of prisoners of war. Its operations were conducted on western, southern, and eastern fronts in Europe; in northern and eastern Africa; in western, southern, and eastern Asia; in North and South America; and in different parts of the island world.”
Text on border says, "YMCA Entertainment Brownsville Texas."
Identifier:
LS-02-27