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YMCA Girl Reserves:1918-1920


JMcCulloch
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The YMCA, perhaps spurred by the competition created by the establishment of the US Girl Scouts and the inchoate Camp Fire Girls, created their own junior group for young women in 1918.

Called the YMCA Girl Reserves, the local YM/WCA local chapters ran these groups as auxiliary service groups-using the young ladies as fetch and carry runners, bakers, baby sitters and general fill-in-the-gap helpers during YMCA events.

Members were issued arm bands like this to be worn at events and small badges for every day wear.

The local Girl Reserves in my state did incredible yeoman's work during the great Flu of 1919.

At the height of the epidemic, everything in the cities of Portland and Boston shut down. Trains ran on short schedules and so many people were either ill, dead, or staying (hiding) in doors that a Harvard Doctor recalled walking ALL the way down Commonwealth Avenue at 8am on a Saturday morning and encountering only one person -" a small, red-cheeked, cheerful Irish YMCA girl offered me a donut and a coffee as I approached the hospital...she was the only living person I saw that morning in Boston. As I entered the door of the clinic I immediately saw three prostate corpses, one a newly returned soldier from France, laying dead under army blankets in the hallway".

This is An almost pristine armband, I believe from 1918, but maybe later.

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In so far as I can tell, the YMCA girl Reserves were VERY active in WW2, but then disbanded some tome in the 1950s.

Here's a close up of the sewn badge.

post-4995-0-77234500-1425249671.jpg

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On a side note, the National WWI Museum in Kansas city has a number of YWCA and YMCA items, but does not have one like yours.

 

 

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