YMCA of the USA. Transportation Dept.

Organized YMCA work with railroad and other transportation workers dates to 1872, when the first railroad YMCA was founded in Cleveland, Ohio. These associations were founded to provide railroad workers with such amenities as a place to read, participate in Bible study classes or take a bath. With the growth of the railroad industry during the late 19th and early 20th century, the YMCA work expanded quickly. A traveling secretary was appointed to help organize more associations, and the first railroad convention was held in 1877. By 1910, there were 230 such associations around the country, and the American model was also being successfully adopted abroad in places like India, Russia, and Mexico. In 1920 the name of the Railroad Department changed to the Transportation Department to "make its name conform to the inclusive character of its work." A merchant marine department was set up, with five posts in the U.S. and eight abroad. The Depression took a major toll on the railroad Ys. By the 1950s, with the decline of the railroad system, most railroad Ys had closed or been incorporated into community YMCAs. The Transportation Department was reorganized as the separately incorporated Transportation YMCA of the USA in 1983. In 1989, it was disbanded.

As settlers spread across the Great Plains, missionaries of every denomination followed them, often directing their first efforts to the laborers who built the railways. YMCA staff soon realized that this mode of transportation provided an opportunity for them to travel to unsettled territories to establish more associations, and also to provide services to working men who were away from their familiar homes, families, and churches. The first traces of YMCA work on the railroad can be traced back to 1868, when 8 members of the Omaha, Nebraska association "prospected" the Union Pacific line as far as it was completed at the time, holding revival services at Laramie and Cheyenne, Wyoming, as well as further west on the line for construction workers.

The first organized effort which later lead to a program specifically for railroad employees can be traced to an idea of Henry W. Stager, a train dispatcher of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway. He was shocked by the callous attitude of a crowd viewing the body of a worker killed in an accident in the old Union Station in Cleveland, which disparaged the victim as "only a railroad man." The Cleveland YMCA was expanding its outreach at that time and had already been conducting Sunday services for railroad men and their families. A meeting of interested persons was called and the first Railroad YMCA was organized on April 14, 1872. George Cobb became the secretary and a reading room was dedicated at the Union Depot on June 1, 1872.

Richard Morse, who was the general secretary of the Executive Committee, later that year devoted a layover in Cleveland to an inspection of the reading room. Enthused by what he saw, he later asked Cornelius Vanderbilt to devote a room in the recently completed Grand Central Station in New York City to YMCA work. Enthusiasm gained momentum at the International Conference the following year, when George Cobb was granted five minutes to talk about railroad work, which he utilized fully by starting to talk on his way to the platform and finishing upon arrival back at his seat.

Over the next few years railroad associations were organized in Chicago, Erie, Baltimore, Boston and Detroit, as well as others organized by traveling secretary Lang Sheaff. Sheaff and other International Committee members prevailed upon Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jr., who had recently become a director with the New York association, to open a room in Grand Central Station. A room was given, but more importantly came the continued financial support of the Vanderbilts.

In June 1877 the International Committee and delegates at the International Convention decided to begin railroad work on a national basis. With funds from Vanderbilt, Edwin D. Ingersoll was hired as international secretary. The first railroad convention was held in Cleveland in October of the same year. At the second convention held in 1879, the relation of the railroad movement to the YMCA was worked out. The debate was whether the railroad branches should sever connections with the YMCA or stay in the fold: in the end it was decided that the work carried out would be most effective as a department within the YMCA.

After 1889, railroad work expanded with Clarence J. Hicks assuming the position of Railroad Secretary. The railroad department now began to directly approach railroad companies to establish YMCA branches at as many divisional points along a line as feasible. With this new approach, the railroads dealt directly with a representative of the national-level railroad department instead of each railroad association individually. John Moore assumed the secretaryship of the Railroad Department after Hicks' retirement in 1911. By this time local associations numbered 230, which were served by 518 secretaries and a combined budget of over one million dollars, of which nearly forty percent was provided by railroad companies, the rest by members.

At the turn of the century the American model for railroad work was experimented with abroad. The first attempt in Japan between 1891-1893 was unsuccessful, but in 1892 a railroad association was established in Coimbatore, India. On the success of India invitations came from Great Britain and France to advise on American applications. Work was also done in Russia and an association was established in Mexico City in 1902, with an American secretary.

The railroad Ys provided practical things such as clean beds, good meals, and hot showers, but also addressed the educational, spiritual, and recreational needs of the workers with Bible study, instructional courses on a variety of subjects, organized sports, and other activities. The YMCA's effective work with railroad men led it its establishing the Industrial Department in 1903, expanding its reach to miners, lumbermen, and other industrial workers.

In 1920 the name of the Railroad Department changed to the Transportation Department to "make its name conform to the inclusive character of its work." A merchant marine department was set up, with five posts in the U.S. and eight abroad.

Railroad associations were reduced by the depression and the changes in railroading. In the years 1930-1939, the number of association had gone from 196 to 117, members from some 118,000 to 87, 462 and expenditures from $5.6 million to $3.6 million. By 1952 the number of associations was 116 and membership had rebounded to 129,093. Thirty years later the number of associations had shrunk to only 23. In the wake of the organizational changes associated with the move of YMCA headquarters to Chicago in the early 1980s, the Transportation Department was reorganized in 1983 as the separately incorporated Transportation YMCA of the USA. Due to the consolidation of rail lines and the changes in railroad technology, the Transportation Department disbanded in 1989.

References:

Hopkins, C. Howard. History of the YMCA in North America . New York: Association Press, 1951.

"Transportation YMCAs Centennial Dedication," program, 1972.

Winter, Thomas. Making Men, Making Class: The YMCA and Workingmen, 1877-1920 . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002.