YMCA Goodwill Tour Archive
- Bib ID:
- 7335375
- Format:
- Book
- Description:
-
- United States : [not published] [between 1920 and 1930?]
- brochures, letters, post cards, manuscripts
- Summary:
-
These travel brochures, postcards, YMCA documents and books, and menus from the NYK Hikawa Maru’s maiden voyage from Seattle to Asia, provide an excellent historical record of the experiences of a young YMCA Goodwill Tour ambassador on the eve of the Great Depression. Although the groundwork had been laid at the end of the turn-of-the-19th-century by the YMCA building an international presence by founding chapters in China, Japan, and the Philippines, these Goodwill Tours were developed in conjunction with western trade missions to Asia in the aftermath of World War I to build better understanding between cultures. This Second Annual Goodwill Tour was organized by Edwin Sokolofsky (1897-1987), who was the Executive Secretary of the King County YMCA, (Washington, USA) and the group included seven high school students, Jim Brennan, Frank Cross, Ed Riddell, John Ulman, Bill Dyer, George Leedy, and Frank Spears. Departing on the Hikawa Maru June 17, 1930, the group traveled to Yokohama, Tokyo, Kobe, Osaka, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Manila, Nanking, Peiping [Beijing], Mukden, Seoul, Pyongyang, and Fusan, Korea, back to Japan and then returned by September 7, 1930 to Seattle, WA. The tour not only included visits to historic tourist sites, but also included meeting with YMCA-sponsored Discussion Groups on International relations, receptions, visits to YMCA Boys’ Camps and other missionary and educational endeavors. The autographed letters and Western Union telegrams include several from family members encouraging young Frank on his trip, including one ALS from his mother stating “Remember not only the world will judge your family, but your country by the way you act. So try hard dear to always be a gentleman.”
Frank Spears seems to have been especially keen on collecting postcards from the YMCA side trip to Japanese controlled Korea, including photo postcards of the Shokei Zoo in Seoul, Real Photo Postcards of the walls and buildings in Botondai, Heijo [Pyongyang], loggers building log rafts on the Yalu River, Korean children playing on a seesaw, Korean festivals, and more. The Hikawa Maru was an 11,622 Gross register ton passenger liner, with accommodations for 331 passengers, including 70 tourist class passengers, and was especially renowned for her superb food, resulting in her being nicknamed “Queen of the Pacific” by travelers. The beautiful menus show that Tourist Class travelers could enjoy fried sole, veal chops, fried sardines, rump steaks, meat curry, parsley omelets, fish croquettes in piquante sauce, veal shoulder with green-peas, Roast Beef, smoked sausages, Kamakara ham, ox-tongue, Prime rib, chicken curry, Roast pigeon with potatoes, Sheep’s feet with mushrooms, and much more. The Japanese woodblock colour prints on the dinner menus are exceptional, with views of temples, mills in winter at Mt. Fuji, street scenes in the snow, and others. The Hikawa Maru was the only mainstream Imperial Japanese passenger liner to survive World War II, and eventually was restored to become a floating tourist attraction in Yokohama, open to the public. Of additional interest are menus from the SS Chohei Maru, and the Nikko-Kanaya Hotel. Of special note are the offprints from the South China Morning Post detailing the efforts of the Canton, China YMCA describing membership of over 1700, lantern slide and educational lectures held, the numbers of socials and parties, vaccination campaigns, the child welfare exhibit, free education for the poor, and much more, together with brochure detailing current members and significant YMCA officials with photo images in Chinese. The photographic souvenir of the Forbidden City includes 13 nicely done collotype images, with captions below in English, and the original printed softcovers. The Manila Philippines Central Student YMCA handbook is quite scarce, even though by the end of the 1920s, the Philippine International Division YMCA had over 6000 members and significant growth, but all of this was destroyed by the Japanese invasion during World War II, and nearly all of the YMCA buildings, records, and equipment were destroyed during the War. Spears (1915-2009) graduated from the University of Oregon in 1936, Harvard Law School in 1939, and served during World War II training recruits breaking Japanese radio codes, and was one of the first intelligence operatives of the OSS. Later he became a noted attorney in Portland, OR, as well as serving on the board of Linfield College. See: Goodwill Tour, Daily Capital Journal from Salem, June 9, 1930, p. 12; YMCA of the USA, International Division, Archive, Worldcat (1901-1990); Hackett, Kingsepp & Cundall, Byoinsen, IJN Hospital Ship Hikawa Maru: Tabular Record of Movement; Obituary, Oregon State Bar Bulletin, January, 2010, Frank Spears; Will Enjoy a Goodwill Trip to the Orient, Bothell Sentinel, June 14, 1930, Vol. XII, No. 43, p. 1.
- Notes:
-
- Title provided by vendor. Held in a box (35 x 30 x 6 cm)
- This set of archival collection on YMCA Goodwill Tour consists of brochures, letters, post cards, manus, etc. Details are listed as; [6 pp (unpaginated)], itinerary for Tour; 7 ALS, w/ envelopes, 3 of them on Benjamin Franklin Hotel, Seattle engraved letterhead; 5 8vo. Japan Travel Bureau sightseeing brochures w/ maps & illustrations; 32 postcards of Japan (several printed in colour chromolithograph borders), Yokohama Industrial Museum brochures, 3 Japan Hotel travel luggage labels; NYK Line Radio news bulletin; 21 printed & Real Photo Postcards of Korea, w/ envelope; 2 Western Union telegrams; 7 blue-tinted photogravure NYK lunch menus on thick paper stock sized 5 x 8.25; 6 colour-printed NYK lunch menus, w/ detachable colour postcards intact; 2 colour-printed embossed NYK lunch menus; 14 NYK breakfast menus printed on thick paper stock, rounded corners, all edges silver, 9 colour-illustrated woodblock printed NYK dinner menu letter sheets, w/ colour map, writing & mailing info on verso sized 7.75 x 10.25 in.; 3 additional miscellaneous menus; YMCA postcard dated 1922 for Spears, Sr.; 12mo. 148 pp., with illustrated ads, calendar, flexible limp burgundy-coloured cloth covers (slight shelfwear) Philippine Central Student YMCA handbook; Real Photo Postcard of Philippine mountains from Philippine YMCA; YMCA Song Book, w/ Goodwill Tour written at upper front cover, 12mo. 47, [1] pp., w/ printed red & black softcovers; 3 receipts & brochures for Osaka & Yokohama YMCA’s; Canton YMCA reports, 4to., pp. 79-90 printed in green & white, illustrations, in Chinese, together with 2 printed broadsides for Canton YMCA offprints from South China Morning Post, May 29, 1929; Oblong folio, [26 leaves], photo-illustrated throughout tourist brochure for the Forbidden City Imperial Palaces in China.
- Subject:
-
- Young Men's Christian Association -- Washington (State)
- Nihon Yūsen Kabushiki Kaisha -- History -- Sources
- Passenger ships -- Japan -- History -- Sources
- Japan -- Description and travel -- 20th century -- Sources
- Korea -- Description and travel -- 20th century -- Sources
- China -- Description and travel -- 20th century -- Sources
- Copyright:
-
Out of Copyright
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- Reason for copyright status:
- Since 2000 [Created/Published Date + 70 Years]
Copyright status was determined using the following information:
- Material type:
- Literary Dramatic Musical
- Published status:
- Published
- Publication date:
- 1930
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