The Young Women’s Christian Association helped shape generations of American women’s lives. IU’s groundbreaking chapter played an important role for nearly a century before shutting its doors in 1972.
Amid social changes in the 1960s, Bloomington’s YWCA advocated for racial, gender and LGBTQ+ issues. Its membership peaked in 1964 with 671 women.
“I remain in awe of YWCA Bloomington and what they did as a college chapter and their work at the national level,” YWCA CEO Margaret Mitchell said. “The entire Midwest region was really inspiring, with YWCA Bloomington leading the way.”
The YWCA USA was founded in 1858 in New York City, first known as the Ladies Christian Association. It sought to improve the “temporal, moral and spiritual welfare” of employed women. In 1866, women organized the first local YWCA chapter in Boston and later the association expanded to college campuses.
Despite its origins as a religious group, the association evolved into a global movement for gender equality and civic justice.
“YWCA was one of the few, and in many situations the only, organization on campuses really supporting young women, empowering young women, giving them a place where they could be seen and heard,” Mitchell said.
Student archivist Kelly Sturgeon said IU's local YWCA chapter started in 1886, spearheaded by Jenny Bryan – sister of IU president William Lowe Bryan.
The chapter was governed by a coalition of student officers, an executive council, a cabinet, an executive director, a secretary and a board of directors. According to IU Archives, the chapter was responsible for IU Sing from 1932 to around 1970.
Bloomington’s chapter began similarly to its national counterpart in that it existed primarily as a religious organization before evolving toward community service and advocacy.
“They did a lot of work with children with disabled children, and they helped freshman women get settled on campus, and helped with advising, even for classes and stuff like that,” Sturgeon said.
In 1971, the chapter hosted a Women’s Weekend that included workshops tied to abortion rights, racial and gender equality, self-defense lessons and a penciled-in workshop geared toward LGBTQ+ women.
“Everything they were doing was very progressive, very female power,” Sturgeon said.
In April 1972, IU’s Steering Committee voted 9-1 to discontinue the chapter due to the withdrawal of United Fund grants and what it said was a shift in female students’ needs.
Even though the Bloomington chapter closed over five decades ago, YWCA closures and mergers into Young Men’s Christian Association chapters is something Mitchell sees nationally.
But that doesn’t mean the association’s advocacy is any less present throughout the U.S. — one of YWCA’s current areas of focus is getting people to the polls.
“We are very much focused on voter access and get out the vote work,” Mitchell said. “We have been in that space for a very, very long time.”
Looking back at Bloomington’s chapter, Mitchell said its work reflects how women fiercely strived for equality despite having “so much more to lose.”
“This is the story of our presence and community as a lighthouse, as a safe beacon of support that is so much of what YWCA was, and so much of what YWCA is today,” she said.
