National Board of the Young Men's Christian Associations. International Division.

Dating from 1893, several attempts were made to organize a YMCA association in Bangkok, Thailand (previously known as Siam). However, the formal establishment of an association with a foreign secretary was not begun until 1929, after John R. Mott answered a request for assistance by a group of churches and missions with a $21 thousand gift from the James Stokes Society. The National Councils of the United States and Canada took responsibility for the project, and Walter A. Zimmerman was placed in charge of the Bangkok Association after a preliminary investigation was conducted by the International Committee.

Zimmerman began to learn the Thai language and established a provisional board of directors with Samuel Benthoon Boon Itt as president in 1932. The son of a Presbyterian missionary, Boon Itt and others had constructed a mission known as the Boon Itt Institute in 1907. The mission transferred its property, equipment and assets to the YMCA to become the Boon Itt Memorial Branch of the Young Men’s Christian Association of Bangkok. Although three quarters of the Bangkok Association’s board of directors were required to be members of an evangelical church, general membership was granted to "any youth of good moral character, without distinction of nationality, race, or religion."

Membership grew quickly at the Bangkok Association, which offered programs in physical education, Bible study, student groups, and hobby groups. A night school for young men and women was established in 1936. By the 1940s, the Association was overcrowded; however, an Englishwoman named Emily Collins donated her Anglican girls’ school to the YMCA in 1941 – allowing for the continued expansion of the Bangkok Association. Immediately prior to the Japanese occupation of Thailand during World War II, all foreigners on the board of directors resigned. When the Allies gained control of the country, the Association’s property was turned into a military hospital for Indian troops. The rundown building was returned to the YMCA in 1946.

By 1951, the Bangkok Association had a membership of 2,072 men and 351 boys, and it was estimated that another 225,000 people were served through vocational classes, sports, and outdoor excursions, among other programs. The Association continued to develop throughout the 1950s and 1960s via secretarial training and the construction of building additions, student hostels, and camps using money donated from the Buildings for Brotherhood Campaign, as well as local fundraising efforts.

The first YMCA association outside of Bangkok was established in Chiang Mai – the major city of northern Thailand – in 1969 with the assistance of the Bangkok YMCA and the Canadian University Service Overseas. From early on, the Chiang Mai Association was primarily concerned with rural development work. The Association helped to train Thai development leaders, built roads, schools, wells, and educated farmers on improved agricultural techniques. However, the Association’s connection with USAID was controversial among leftist students in the city. Furthermore, the rural development work in the borderlands region of northern Thailand was slowed by political opposition and the danger posed by communist insurgent groups.

Following the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, the YMCA in Thailand worked to assist the flood of refugees streaming into the country via the Indo-China Refugee Program. In addition, the Bangkok Association shifted its focus to include more humanitarian work. Expansion continued through the construction of new buildings, as well as the establishment of new YMCA centers outside of Bangkok and Chiang Mai. Throughout the 1980s, the YMCA of Thailand promoted development work, and the Northern Women's Development Foundation was established in 1989 to encourage Thai women to participate in development projects.

The following is a list of individuals who served as YMCA secretaries in Thailand, along with their dates of service, if known:

Barnhart, Byron Pat (1937-1941) Kindree, Roger M. (1965-1966) Benne, Karl Heinz (1962-1963) Meyer, Keith B. (1972-1974) Brauninger, Robert R. (1963-1965) Smargon, Alan Peter (1966-1968) Faukner, Murray E. (1959-1970) Stange, Karl Henry (1950-1953) Harvey, Charles Way (1930-1932) Wilcox, Joseph Jr. (1968-1973) Hines, William Earle (1955) Wilson, Floyd Alva (1946-1957) Keller, Philip B. (1971-1973) Zimmerman, Walter A. (1930-1956)

[Historical information largely adapted from the collection, as well as from World Service: A History of the Foreign Work and World Service of the Young Men's Christian Associations of the United States and Canada (New York: Association Press, 1957) by Kenneth LaTourette. Additional information was taken from the website of the Chiang Mai Association (http://www.ymcachiangmai.org).]

From the guide to the Records of YMCA international work in Siam and Thailand, 1909-1980, 1998., (bulk 1929-1980 ), (University of Minnesota. Kautz Family YMCA Archives. [ymca])

YMCAs of German origin existed as early as 1881 in Turkey. These were largely youth groups existing through the efforts of missionaries serving in mission schools. In 1908 Turkey was visited by John R. Mott, and shortly thereafter, Lawson P. Chambers was assigned as the first fraternal secretary. Chambers was officially recognized though not financially supported by the International Committee. With Mott’s concurrence Chambers formed an advisory committee in Constantinople. In 1910, the first salaried secretary, Ernest Otto Jacob, was hired by the North American YMCA's International Committee as a traveling secretary for the Levant (a region including all the eastern Mediterranean from Greece through Egypt, mostly then part of the Turkish Empire). The same year, Darius A. Davis was appointed to Constantinople. In 1911 the Provisional Committee for the YMCAs and YWCAs of the Turkish Empire was established and in 1913 the Turkish Association was admitted as a full member of the World's Alliance of YMCAs. Early sustaining members drew from a diverse community and included Jews, Greeks, Armenians, Americans, and Europeans.

The Adana massacre of 1909 and the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913 inspired greater interest in the YMCA's offerings. The Turkish public saw the education that the YMCA provided as a cure to the war and as training for their children. Association secretaries were appointed to Smyrna, Constantinople, Robert College and the Syrian Protestant College. Within the first three months of the Constantinople YMCA being officially open they gained 500 members.

From 1919 to 1922, after the defeat of Central Powers in WWI, Turkey fought a war of independence. On the western front of this conflict was the Greco-Turkish War. In 1922 YMCA secretaries Ernest Otto Jacob and Asa Kent Jennings were in Smyrna as thousands of Greek, Armenian and Jewish refugees were swept into the city by the Turkish army. Jennings succeeded in establishing a hospital for women and children and Jennings and Jacob housed many refugees in buildings along the waterfront. Shortly after the occupation of the Turkish forces a fire destroyed a large part of the city and hundreds of thousands of refugees were crowded on the waterfront. Many drowned, or died from exposure, disease or famine. Jennings persuaded an Italian ship to carry 2,000 refugees to the adjacent island of Mitylene where he secured several Greek merchant vessels for refugee evacuation under the watch of the U. S. destroyer Litchfield. Eventually all Greek merchant ships were placed under his command and with the permission of the Turkish authority and the Greek government in Athens he led the fleet into Smyrna and began evacuating refugees, a process that lasted day and night for a week. Jennings was decorated with the highest of military and civilian awards and was soon after chosen to serve as one of the commissioners for the exchange of prisoners.

Post-war Turkey was deliberately a secular state in which any religious, and especially any Christian "propaganda" was forbidden. The very name of the organization became an obstacle to its work, as for Turks the term "Christian" was identified not primarily with religion but with the communities which bore that name and represented historical political tensions and offensive racial and cultural characteristics. Harry T. Baker, who took over as general secretary when Van Bommel was transferred to Italy in 1926, even suggested that the designation of Christian be dropped from the Constantinople association, a proposal which the YMCA's Foreign Committee rejected.

Partly to avoid the offense of the word "Christian" and partly to meet the highly sensitive nationalistic spirit of the new Turkey, Asa K. Jennings proposed the organization of Turkish-American clubs, much on the pattern of the YMCA. Funding difficulties, stemming from the postwar decline in charitable contribution from North America, led the National Council to cut its support for the program; ultimately even for Jennings' salary. However, Jennings continued in Turkey supported by an organization known as American Friends of Turkey. The American Friends of Turkey worked closely with a Turkish organization called Hayir Islerine Yardim Cemiyeti or the Turkish Welfare Society. With funds obtained elsewhere he inaugurated successful local programs in Ankara and Smyrna. These programs included the building of the OJAK (a Turkish nationalist club) national offices in Angora and the Anatolian project; a project that made available to the leaders of new Turkey the social service experience of the YMCA without imposing religious forms of the organization.

In the late 1930s, changes in Turkish law required the YMCA to turn over more control of the organization to Turks and eventually forced it to change its name, due to the Turkish law against organizations founded on religion. The Constantinople YMCA closed briefly in 1939 and reopened under the name Amerikan Lisan de Ticaret Dersanesi (American School of Languages and Commerce), referred to variously as the Dershane, Dersane, or Dersani. A couple of years later in 1942, Ezra P. Young took over, serving for over a decade, followed by Frank S. Coan and Lawson M. Kately. The Dershane was not as free to pursue a social program as the pre-1940 Association had been, but still made an important contribution through educational classes; especially English language, camping and physical education programs. It also succeeded in adapting to the laws and cultures of Turkey and expanding its indigenous leadership.

During World War II, the members of the Dershane's staff traveled freely, they assisted the Turkish Red Crescent with selecting campsites for underprivileged children and with training leaders. Basketball and volleyball, both introduced by the YMCA, became national games. Muslim leadership in board and staff emerged. The government tacitly acknowledged its debt by adopting the YMCA pattern of camps for boys and using the Dershane’s men to train leaders for them. After the war the Marshall Plan was implemented in Turkey. Turkey received a lot of helpful agricultural equipment, though due to the growing pains that accompanied the establishment of a multi-party system, the equipment only slightly assisted the economy of the country. The Amerikan Lisan de Ticaret Dersanesi was treated as a holding operation for approximately 30 years, maintaining a YMCA presence in Turkey and not costing the YMCA much. It was not able to branch out though. A law passed in Turkey in late 1965 which applied to foreign private schools, prohibited the construction of new buildings and the modernization of old ones, it also strictly controlled building repairs. The top two floors of the Dershane were shortly there after ordered closed by authorities.

A foundation was established in 1968 called the Yucel Kultur Vakfi (Yucel Culture Foundation). It was a self perpetuating body of 68 members, the majority of them being Turkish Muslims, and was recognized as being a Turkish foundation by the Turkish government in Ankara in 1969. The members were the control body who held title to property, custody of funds and determination of basic policy. The Yucel Kultur Vakfi capitalized on the Y initial and used the typical YMCA triangle while not displaying all of the letters of the YMCA. Charles Webster, a fraternal secretary who had maintained a post at the Dershane, became the leader of the staff for this foundation, though by 1971 he left the YKV. This was due to a decision by the International Division to withdraw him. Webster eventually became a fraternal secretary for the International Committee of YMCAs. By 1973 the Dershane transferred the titles of its school and camp property over to the YKV and maintained these programs through the new foundation. Though the YKV was a cooperating member with the World Council of YMCAs they also remained autonomous and maintained a loose connection with the North American YMCAs.

The foundation maintained programs in education, career choice selection and summer camps. It also dedicated a portion of its efforts to the assistance of disabled and orphaned children. A brother's club was established bringing together volunteers in order to assist young boys. In 2011 the YKV was granted Associate status with the European YMCAs and began working toward the same with the World Alliance.

The following is a list of individuals who served as YMCA secretaries in Turkey along with their dates of service:

Alexander, Chester Stephen (1921-1926) Herron, Douglas B. (1962-1963) Ascham, John Bayne (1925-1926) Jacob, Ernest Otto (1910-1917, 1920-1923) Baker, Harry Thomas (1925-1940) Jennings, Asa Kent (1922-1933) Berkedal, Jon G. (1972-1976) Jenny, Arnold Eugene (1940) Briggle, Lester (1925-1926) Kately, Lawson McIntosh (1955-1961) Bristol, Warren Edwin (1919-1922) Lindstrom, David G. (1960-1961) Burnhans, Barent (1929-1932) Maxwell, Farley R. (1959-1960) Chambers, Lawson P. (1908-1910) Pence, Owen Earle (1914-1918) Clark, N. Walling (1902-1903) Perry, James L. (1915-1920) Clodfelter, Gerald C. (1977-1979) Ross, Duncan William (1925-1926) Clayter, James Frederic (1963-1965) Stevens, Elbert Crandell (1919-1932) Coan, Frank Speer (1953-1956) Tobin, Chester Martin (1924-1928) Davis, Darius Alton (1910-1915) Torrence, Edgar C. (1963) Gannaway, William Ted (1929-1934) Van Bommel, Dirk Johannes (1912-1926) Glenn, William E. (1961-1963) Webster, Charles B. (1963-1971) Haas, Dwight M. (1961-1962) Young, Ezra Porter (1941-1953) Hedden, Ernest Myers (1921-1932)

Historical information largely adapted and quoted from World Service: A History of the Foreign Work and World Service of the Young Men's Christian Associations of the United States and Canada, (New York: Association Press, 1957) by Kenneth Scott Latourrette, from YMCA Europe, 2011 (http://www.ymcaeurope.com/), and from the collection.

From the guide to the Records of YMCA international work in Turkey, 1884-1980., (bulk 1909-1975), (University of Minnesota. Kautz Family YMCA Archives. [ymca])

In 1904, Joseph E. Hubbard was sent to Cuba to assist in establishing a YMCA. The Cuban Y was founded on May 12, 1905 in Havana. This Association served both Americans and Cubans. A building was rented, a gymnasium was opened, Bible classes were held, a boys' camp was facilitated, and Cubans were added to the board of directors.

Havana had difficulties raising money early on. In 1911, an effort was made, encouraged by a conditional offer of $75,000 from the YMCA International Committee, to obtain 150,000 in Havana for a new building. The Catholic bishop publicly attacked the project as Protestant, Spanish clubs were opposed, American business men were lukewarm and the campaign fell far from the goal. Hubbard was not discouraged and remained in Havana. In 1915 a building was erected with mostly money from the International Committee.

In 1921, Everett James Simonds replaced Hubbard. For a time the Havana Association continued to grow through the financial support of the Cubans. Simonds left in 1926. Cuban Luis Machado was president, but in general, able Cuban leadership was lacking, especially for the secretarial posts. Simonds was replaced by Herbert Watson Chaffee. Unfortunately, arguments about finances and revisions of the constitution arose between the Cubans and the North Americans. The building was in horrible shape and debts were accumulated. The depression struck and with it fell the economy. And for all of the above reasons the effort in Havana came to an unfortunate end. In 1941 the building was sold.

The following is a list of individuals who served as YMCA secretaries in Cuba, along with their dates of service:

Chaffee, Herbert Watson (1927-1932) MacLeod, John J. (1906-1908) Davis, Charles (1923-1925) Mann, Frank H. (1905) Garniss, George Winslow (1909-1919) Nuttle, Charles Howard (1909-1913) Ghiselin, Samuel Brown (1909) Simonds, Everett James (1918-1925) Hatch, Arthur L. (1919-1920) Thayer, Clarence Putnam (1920-1922) Hubbard, Joseph Edward (1904-1919) Ward, Earle A. (1921-1925)

Historical information largely adapted and quoted from World Service: A History of the Foreign Work and World Service of the Young Men's Christian Associations of the United States and Canada, (New York: Association Press, 1957) by Kenneth Scott Latourette, and from the collection.

From the guide to the Records of YMCA International Work in Cuba, 1904-1979, (bulk 1904-1941), (University of Minnesota. Kautz Family YMCA Archives. [ymca])

The political, economic, cultural and religious turmoil in the Soviet Union followingWorld War I produced many exiles, both voluntary and involuntary. Among them were writers, artists, engineers and persons of all professions interested in the reconstruction of the country's national economy and education. The YMCA Press, begun in 1921, and the Chekhov Publishing House, begun in 1951, both played a large role in the preservation of the cultural information and ideas that were stifled by the strict regulations on literature put in place by the Russian government at the time. Although these presses were originally sponsored by the Young Men's Christian Associations of North America, they were essentially a Russian undertaking with the purpose of preserving, developing and spreading Russian Christian culture.

The YMCA Press publishing house began its work in the year 1921. A small group of Russian men who found themselves in New York during World War I approached John R. Mott, General Secretary of the American YMCA, with a proposal for a press. Prague was selected as the most suitable place for the establishment of a Russian language printing plant and the YMCA Press (YMCAtisk in Czech) began turning out books. At this time the YMCA had several representatives in Russia who were able to provide a natural channel for the distribution of books sent there. In 1923 the Soviet authorities announced an embargo on the entry of literature. YMCA Press books in the process of production were rushed to completion and almost the entirety of the output of the Press was sent to relief work delegates in Russia ahead of the deadline set for the embargo.

he Press management decided that it was unwise to continue the plant in Prague. It was sold, the editors and technical personnel released, and the books remaining in stock were sent to the YMCA Center for Russian refugees, located in Berlin. Russian immigration there had produced many cultural organizations and institutions, among them the Russian Student Christian Movement Abroad (RSCM.) The YMCA movement collaborated closely with the RSCM, which turned to the YMCA Press with recommendations of topics for books and authors to write them.

In 1924 the German national economy was being reconstructed, opportunities for employment were reduced and government stipends for Russian refugee students were cut. At the same time in France, workers were being sought. Tens of thousands of Russian refugees moved from Berlin to France. The YMCA moved its Russian Center, Home Study Technical Institute, and stock of books and publishing activities from Berlin to Paris. Administrative activities of the YMCA Press was entrusted to two men from the American YMCA, Paul B. Anderson and G. G. Kullman, and two selected from the Russian community, N. A. Berdyaev and B. P. Vycheslavzev. In 1928 Kullman left and his place was taken by D. A. Lowrie.

In the immigrant community, scores of elite Russian Orthodox intelligentsia collaborated with and were published through the YMCA Press. Also published was series of brochures, textbooks, memoirs and some children's literature, though it was not as popular. When the Nazi Party threatened firms with Jewish administrations in the early 1930s, the YMCA Press received a portion of the stock of other booksellers in Paris on commission. The commercial side of the YMCA Press was strengthened and relationships with other Russian-language publishers and bookstores in Paris were considered. A loose society was formed with more than a dozen firms participating, and Paul B. Anderson was elected president. The group established "Les Editeurs Reunis" (in English,"United Publishers"), a unifying body intended to control this depository and run a bookstore for Russian Books published abroad. Wherease the YMCA Press restricted publishing to literature with a religious outlook, Les Editeurs Reunis was free in its policies to handle more literature and was established with Russian book dealers throughout Eastern Europe and Manchuria.

World War II interrupted all publishing by YMCA Press and reduced sales to the limited market of France and the War Prisoners Aid of the YMCA. Many authors and close contacts of the YMCA Press died during the war. Post war conditions created a new situation and many problems, along with a rise in production and a widening of the market in the west. In 1947, D. A. Lowrie became director of the Press and collaborated with the World Council of Churches for financial backing.

Meanwhile, in New York in 1951, sanctioned by the Ford Foundation, the Chekhov Publishing House was begun as a division of the East European Fund, Inc. This publishing house made it possible for Russians recently arrived in the United States from the Soviet Union to write and publish their work, increasing the volume of literature in the Russian language uninfluenced by the Soviet government. This publishing house, though important to the development of Russian literature, was short-lived. Upon its liquidation in 1956, the entire remaining stock of the Chekhov Publishing House was put in the hands of the National Board YMCA in New York. The National Board in New York then commissioned the YMCA Press to handle the sales of Chekhov books and the reinvestment of the proceeds for books in the Russian language.

In 1955 Lowrie retired from active service and the American YMCA Committee began to mediate the transfer of authority of the YMCA Press and of Les Editeurs Reunis to the RSCM. At the same time a new consultative organ was set up for the RSCM to utilize, of which Paul B. Andersen and retired YMCA official, Charles T. Tidball were members. By this time the YMCA Press had published over 400 titles and for thirteen years had published the religious philosophical journal Pout as well as a quarterly journal, Novi Grad . They were also at the time publishing Orthodox Thought, the journal of the Orthodox Theological Institute of Saint Sergius in Paris.

By the 1970s, in spite of the Soviet embargo, a limited volume of YMCA Press books found their way into the USSR and in 1990 the YMCA Press was able to openly return to Russia.

[Historical information largely adapted and quoted from the collection.]

From the guide to the YMCA Russian publishing work files, 1951-1970s., (University of Minnesota. Kautz Family YMCA Archives. [ymca])