- Education - Janesville Sesquicentennial
-
- YMCA started here back in 1867; local YWCA in 1921
- The Janesville YMA - which would become the YMCA - started
in 1853, just 11 years after the
- YMCA movement started worldwide.
- The group met in the upper part of Thomas WALLESCRAFT's
store, at the east end of the
- Milwaukee Street bridge. The forerunners of the state Y conventions
reportedly were held here.
- By 1867, a group of businessmen who were interested in collecting
books for a city library
- organized under the name Janesville Young Men's Association.
- The first Y was built at Milwaukee and High streets at a
cost of $30,000. In 1926, a new structure
- was built at Franklin and Dodge Streets for $400,000. It
was on the site of the Interurban Hotel. A gift of $18,000 from
William F. PALMER helped finance construction of the fourth
floor dormitories.
- Groundwork for the local YWCA was laid in 1921 when several
groups met to discuss the need
- for such an organization. Soon 700 women had signed up. The
first home was the third floor of The Janesville Gazette.
- Nearly 5,000 women participated in a Health Education Week
in 1927.
- The first permanent structure, purchased in 1929, was located
at 101 S. Main. The site was made
- possible by a bequest from Mrs. Marian P. LEAVITT
of her home on North Jackson Street.
- During the Depression, the YWCA Employment Service placed
355 women in jobs, and 2,000
- garments were made for the Red Cross.
- J. A. CRAIG presented the home of the late Mrs. Julia
STOWE LOVEJOY to the YW in 1953,
- and the group started using it as their new headquarters
a year later.
-
- [Photograph; caption reads: Pantomime dancers participated
in a musical revue held at the old Myers Theatre which helped
raise money to start a YWCA in Janesville. The photo was taken
in 1921 or 1922. From left, are Mrs. Walton LANE and Mrs.
Merle HANSON.]
-
- [Photograph; caption reads: The early YMCA building, at the
corner of West Milwaukee and High streets, was built in 1895.]
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