A Rich History for Women at the South Shore YMCA

During the earliest days of the South Shore YMCA’s existence, women played support roles for the young organization. Long before women had the right to vote, a women’s auxiliary organized fundraising activities to cover the costs of running the programs that were keeping young men fit and healthy, and out of trouble. Such were the times. Women championed their causes through Women’s Clubs, but were also unsung heroes behind many of the male-dominated nonprofit organizations on the South Shore in the 1890s, 1900s and 1910s.

By 1924, the first requests for women’s memberships came into the Quincy Y. By 1932, the women and girls of Quincy could no longer be denied, as the Y created a Women’s Division under the watchful eye of its director, Miss Thelma Payne. Although at first restricted to special “women’s hours” in the old gym on Washington Street, women and girls eventually became fully integrated into the daily life of the Y.

And when they did, look out.

In 1946, one of the Y’s board members suggested: “that there should be women on the Board of Directors.” Women had assumed many new roles in recent years, as governments worldwide were forced to use the entirety of their populations to wage World War II. “Rosie the Riveter” and her many colleagues were not simply going to stand down and give up their newfound freedoms. That March, the Y expected to welcome 200 girls in a three-day State Girls’ Conference for Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Women obviously were, and forever would be going forward, instrumental in the success of the Quincy YMCA. Why should they not have a seat at the decision-making table?

Unsure of exactly what to do with the suggestion, the board referred it to President Carle Hayward and General Secretary Floyd Folmsbee for follow-up “as there would be cause for constitutional change.” When that year’s board slate was announced, there were no women on it. Nor were there for the next six years. In 1952, though, the board altered the by-laws to henceforth have gender-neutral language, replacing the words “men” and “boys” to read “person” or “people.” The door was open. In May of 1955, just prior to the opening of the “new” Quincy Y on Coddington Street – designed from the outset for both men and women – Mabel Swenson and Emma Tousant walked through that open door as the first women elected to the board of the South Shore YMCA.

Over the next few years, the Y built its women’s programs alongside its men’s programs. In fact, it was so successful that it drew strong praise from the one woman in the world who would be in the best position to offer it. Bonnie Prudden visited the Quincy YMCA on October 18, 1960, as a visiting physical fitness instructor. A lifelong fitness expert, Prudden had famously written a letter to President Dwight Eisenhower lamenting the fact that European children, on average, were fitter than their American counterparts. His response was to create the President’s Council on Youth Fitness and to appoint her to it.

Prudden, already a pioneering mountaineer, Sports Illustrated columnist, and women’s exercise guru partnered with the YMCA nationally to expand her “Prudden Program,” targeting women’s health, prenatal classes, and mixed classes for multiple family members. In 1956 she published, Is Your Child Really Fit, and in 1961 would release How to Keep Slender and Fit After Thirty.

During the Y board meeting that night, she “spoke of the need for Physical fitness and her work in this field throughout the country. She had particular praise for the Quincy Y program and said that it is the best women’s physical fitness program of any Y she has seen in the entire country.”

That year, the Y had opened its overnight camp for girls, Camp Hayward. In early 1961, Mabel Swenson requested the right to begin a new program for children with developmental disabilities, starting with swimming. The Y’s charm school began on January 17 with Carol Nash as an instructor, and women’s synchronized swimming would be tried in the pool as well. Future Olympics gymnast Kathy Corrigan visited the board of directors in April, present the night that Carle Hayward declared that after 42 years on the Board of the Y, he would not seek re-election. On May 16, 1961, as Hayward stepped away from the Board, the South Shore YMCA made history. That Tuesday evening, at the Annual Meeting, held in the auditorium of the Y, the Nominating Committee announced a slate of officers for the coming year: President, Dr. Emma S. Tousant; Vice President, Edward C. Geehr; Vice President, W. Gordon Clark; Treasurer, Ralph W. Moorhead; and Clerk and Assistant Treasurer, Preston H. Grassick. The minutes of the meeting read that “It was moved, seconded, and unanimously voted that those named be duly elected.”

The assembled members knew, in the moment, what had just occurred. William O’Connell, the outgoing President, introduced Tousant, who stated that the Y had uniquely provided a “climate of achievement” that provided her with an unheralded opportunity. Mabel Swenson “presented Dr. Tousant with a bouquet and congratulated her on being the first woman to serve as President of the Quincy Y and also as the only woman to hold this office in any Y in the United States.”

Remembered today mostly through the naming of Tousant Hall at Camp Hayward in Sandwich, Emma Tousant lived two lives at the Y, as a shrewd negotiator and spokesperson for the Y, and a silent donor and contributor to the organization’s many needs. When Joe Streadwick, the longtime wrestling coach for the Y, mentioned that the wrestling team’s trophies not only had nowhere to be displayed but were being damaged from being left out in the open, the board said they would look into it. Several months later, Tousant donated a trophy case. She donated a Paul Revere bowl to the Women’s Division for use in their gatherings and celebrations, and an atmospheric pressure clock. When the nautical camp program at Mason’s Point needed a boat, she donated the SS Tousant. She did all of this, and more, while standing up to city officials over difficulties with zoning at Mason’s Point, negotiating several land purchases in Sandwich to add to the resident camps, urging directors to be present for Y events throughout New England and championing the work of local people, from young athletes to retiring religious leaders, who were positively impacting the Quincy community. The first two years of her Presidency coincided with the deaths of two important people to the life of the Quincy Y, President John F. Kennedy, on November 22, 1963, and Delcevare King, on March 21, 1964, yet the Y never blinked in its ambitions during this time. In May 1964, she accepted another term.

Growth continued unabatedly. By October 1964, the Quincy Y had 6,000 members. Keeping with the times, the Women’s Division recorded a “Slymnastics” exercise routine and pressed 300 vinyl records with the sounds, preparing to sell them that holiday season at $1.98 apiece as Keeping Fit the Y Way. In December of that year, the “new” Quincy Y suffered its first major breakdown of its mechanical facilities. A middle filter, which worked in conjunction with two others, was operating “with temporary patches and plugs, and at any moment could give way,” according to Gil Crofts. Board member Harold Slate suggested that a committee should be formed to do some “long-range planning and thinking about the capital requirements of the Quincy Y.M.C.A. so that its growth could keep pace with the community growth and the increasing number of people interested in participating in the Y.M.C.A. activities.” The City of Quincy, alone, had grown by 15 percent between 1950 and 1965, a time when the great surge in population was happening to the south of the Boston area; Weymouth had grown by approximately 85 percent, and Hingham by 80 percent. Emma Tousant said that “such a committee was already being organized and lacked only a chairman to head it up.” Clerk pro tem Floyd Folmsbee reported that “Her request for a director to volunteer for the chairmanship of this committee was met with silence.” The day after Christmas, Carle Hayward passed away. The symbolism, of a call to action, could not have been stronger.

As a last act in office, Emma Tousant, in April of 1966, appointed a “Planning and Development Committee” of Peter Ruscitto, chairman, J. Everett Robbie, Dr. Edward S. Mann, Frank Remick, William Smith, Edgar Wood and Ralph Moorhead. The following month, W. Gordon Clark assumed the Presidency of the Quincy YMCA.

On May 17, at the annual meeting, Emma Tousant formally presented the Silver Punch Bowl Set she had donated to the Y, to the Women’s Division. Ever Tousant’s champion, Mabel Swenson accepted the bowl on behalf of the Y with remarks denoting “President Tousant as a person ‘doing for others.’” Swenson then presented Tousant, outgoing President, with a descriptive YMCA pin, and a check for $65 “for her presentation, in her name, to a deserving girl to attend the Girls Leadership Training School at Springfield College, June 1966.” President-elect W. Gordon Clark, “representing the total membership, then presented President Tousant with a gold plated Life Membership Card to the Quincy Y.M.C.A.”

The tenure of the first woman President of the Quincy Y – and any Y – had come to a successful end.

While women today still face inequities in the workplace, with wage disparities and more still separating them from male peers, the powerful impact that women have had on the South Shore YMCA will never be overlooked. Since the 1960s, before any other YMCA in the United States, the South Shore Y has benefitted from the leadership of strong, mission-driven women, both on staff and in volunteer roles. Emma Tousant was the first of many women to become President of the South Shore YMCA and in doing so she paved the way for generations of future women leaders who continue to design the programs, raise the funds, and chart the vision of the organization.

As we celebrate Women’s History Month at the South Shore YMCA, we celebrate Dr. Emma Tousant, Mabel Sewnson, and all women who came before and after them.