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YMCA Historical Image Collection

IMPORTANT NOTICE

Links to the images contained in the Cliff Smith YMCA Postcard Collection and the IMLS Grant (Historical Image Collection) are currently not working due to the recent upgrade of the Voyager Online Catalog. We are working to resolve the issue and hope to have the images back shortly.

In the interim, please note that the records for the images are still available (only the image is unable to be seen through the catalog at this point).

The archives can still get the image and the document you need from our digital collection.

To receive images to view please use the Ask the Archives! Function to contact us and request images. Images will be sent as low resolution jpegs through email. Please be sure to:

· List the title of the image
· Give a brief description of the image
· List the call number and location number if listed in the record

The Archives and Special Collections thanks you for your patience and understanding during this transition to a new catalog. If there are any other questions or if you need further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact the Archive at (413) 748-3309.

• YMCA Historical Image Collection
• YMCA Portrait Collection
• YMCA Poster Collection
• YMCA World War I Image Collection
• YMCA Training School Image Collection
• YMCA College Image Collection

Access to the approximately 2,000 images in all of the collections is available through the Voyager online catalog. A title search for each collection can be done to review all the images in that collection.



Springfield College Archives and Special Collections has created a digital library chronicling the Young Men’s Christian Associations (YMCA) movement in the United States from the 1880s to the 1920s. Early YMCA work crossed racial, social, ethnic, and national barriers during a time when the fabric of the nation was becoming urbanized, experiencing rapid industrial growth, increasing immigration flow, and heightening international involvement. These collections depict the work of the YMCA and the YMCA Training School in urban and rural settings, during the Spanish American War and World War I, on Native American reservations, in educational settings, and through social and recreational programs.

In 1885 the first professional, comprehensive institution for the training of YMCA personnel began in Springfield, Massachusetts, as a YMCA Department of the School for Christian Workers housed in the Armory Hill YMCA. The first instructor of YMCA studies was Jacob T. Bowne, whose previous responsibilities had included the development of training programs for the YMCA’s national organizing body. Bowne’s personal collection created the foundation for the current Springfield College Archives and Special Collections. Luther Gulick, a nationally recognized leader in physical training and recreation programming, headed the Physical Department. It was a curriculum that quickly attracted and developed pioneers in the burgeoning fields of physical education, physical training, and amateur athletics. Early notable figures who came to the Training School as students and instructors include James Naismith (who created basketball as a winter game for Training School students at the Armory Hill gym in 1891), William Morgan (who invented volleyball at the neighboring Holyoke YMCA), and Amos Alonzo Stagg (who organized the Training School's first football program in 1890).

In 1890 the YMCA Department of the School for Christian Workers became formally incorporated as the International YMCA Training School at Springfield, and, by 1895, its new campus on the shores of Lake Massasoit was firmly established with two outdoor athletic fields, a dormitory, and gymnasium. Its library, which was housed in the gymnasium, was recognized as "one of the finest collections on the work of the YMCA and Physical Training to be found." The gymnasium served as a model for physical education facility architecture. Foreign YMCAs based the development of their YMCA training programs on the Springfield Training School model, and Springfield graduates were instrumental in the growth of YMCAs around the world.

With the outbreak of World War I, and under a mandate from President Wilson, the YMCA developed and coordinated a comprehensive program of field support services for troops in Europe. The Springfield Training School campus mobilized to create intensive emergency courses to train YMCA War Workers who would serve as recreational, educational, spiritual, and physical training leaders to troops stationed overseas.


This project was supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services through a National Library Leadership Preservation and Digitization Grant. IMLS is a federal agency that fosters innovation, leadership and a lifetime of learning.