The Boston Young Women’s Christian Association, the first in the nation, was founded in 1866 by upper middle-class Protestant women. Led by Pauline Durant (1832-1917) until 1905, the YWCA hoped to guide and guard the young rural women coming to the city to work. The YWCA provided them with lodging and employment assistance. By the early twentieth century, the YWCA had added a School of Domestic Science and a popular gymnasium. The young women whom they served began to take an active role in the organization’s management and established a busy club program. Confronting racism in the 1930s and 1940s, the YWCA integrated its branches and named Lucy Miller Mitchell (1899-2002) as the first board member of color in 1941. Mitchell, who became executive director of Associated Day Care Services of Metropolitan Boston, was a local and national pioneer in the development of standards for child care. The building on this site, constructed in 1929, now houses offices for the YWCA.
