At the turn of the 20th century, Calgary was booming and people were flocking to the city. Landlords were ready with rooms for rent, doors open to all fortune seekers . . . except women. Females supposedly used too much electricity for laundry and curling their hair.
Emily Spencer Kerby took note of the housing problem and helped form an organization to provide a roof over women’s heads.
One hundred years later, the Young Women’s Christian Association of Calgary — or YWCA — is celebrating its centennial while battling some of the same issues.
"The high point for us is a hundred years later, we are still relevant and have a solid reputation to deliver programs to the community," said YWCA chief executive officer Sue Tomney.
"But the low point is some of those basic needs still exist today."
The YWCA was established on Dec. 16, 1910, by a special proclamation of the Alberta legislature. The organization shares its centennial with Mount Royal University, as Emily Kerby was married to Rev. George Kerby, Mount Royal’s founder.
The YWCA offers programs such as English as a second language as well as health and wellness for both women and men. In recent times, domestic violence against women and children has become an important focus.
"We are providing safe places for women who are victims of violence," said Tomney.
"We are giving them a place to rebuild their lives and various day-care facilities to keep these women independent."
As the YWCA shares almost the same initials with the YMCA, the two are sometimes mixed up, said Tomney.
"The YMCA’s primary mandate is more on the fitness and health side, and that is what they’re known for," explained Tomney. "The YWCA is a number of things to the community — it’s very focused on key pillars of domestic violence against women and children, poverty and homelessness."
Since its inception, the agency’s main focus has been equality — an issue modern women might think has been accomplished.
"We have a ways to go yet. We have to make sure we have the fullness of employment opportunities, equal wage for equal work and safe, affordable child care, because it’s mostly women who are the single parents," said Tomney.
The YWCA CEO said being in the community for 100 years has its benefits. The organization enjoys the backing of other agencies, governments and Calgarians as part of a broader network of support.
A century ago, women were looking for the same thing women are searching for today: a good life. When those early 1900s women were shut out of housing, Kerby and her friends began working on a plan.
"They said, ‘We have to find places to keep these women safe morally,’ " said Lee Tunstall, co-ordinator of the YWCA’s centennial book, Creating Cornerstone, The History of the YWCA of Calgary. "The beginning of that was to build a building."
Of course, this was the time when women didn’t have the vote and were not even persons in the eyes of the law, added Tunstall, so bank dealings were done through the Calgary YWCA founders’ husbands.
"Women have been working and independent for a long time, so we don’t think about this," said Tunstall. "There’s been a lot of changes in women’s lives in Calgary, and the YWCA is proving to be just as adaptive."
In 1909, the women held a fund-raising stint at the Calgary Herald and took over writing the paper to end up with the day’s proceeds. The $796.10 raised went toward the construction of the building at 223 12th Ave. S.W. that opened in 1911.
Today’s anniversary is being privately celebrated at the YWCA building at 320 5th Ave. S.E., which was built in 1971.
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