Boston Young Women's Christian Association (Massachusetts)

The Boston Young Women's Christian Association (BYWCA) was founded in 1866; it was one of the first, and the prototype, for all subsequent YWCAs in the United States. It is also one of the oldest extant voluntary agencies in Boston.

In 1858, Mrs. Lucretia Boyd, a city missionary, first voiced concern for the moral and physical welfare of young women and girls coming from the country to work in Boston. In 1866 a group of women led by the civic reformer Pauline Durant, wife of philanthropist Henry Durant, founded the BYWCA modeled on the English YWCA to "serve the temporal, moral, and religious welfare of young women who are dependent upon their own exertions for support." Young women faced with the choice of "starving or sinning" were to be housed in well-regulated boarding houses and given moral and religious training. Accommodations and a reading room were rented on Chauncy Street in 1866 and shortly thereafter two houses on Beach Street were purchased to offer lodgings to Protestant women under the age of 25. Classes - - including Astronomy, Botany, Penmanship, and Bookkeeping - - were offered and a restaurant opened to serve residents and non-residents.

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