This lantern slide, “Boys Branch Reading Room (Kolkata, Bangla, India),” shows a group of boys studying in a reading room at the boys’ branch of a Y.M.C.A. in Kolkata (Calcutta), India. This branch is the oldest in Asia and was started by the Montreal Boys’ Department. The Y.M.C.A. began working in India in 1889, when they sent a young American named David McConaughy to Madras to serve as the first foreign secretary in India. McConaughy encouraged the development of pre-existing Associations and held the first National Convention in 1891, resulting in the formation of the National Council of India, Burma, and Ceylon. The Association’s most notable contribution in India was its rural development work, first begun by K. T. Paul in 1913. Paul established microloan programs that freed the rural poor from the grips of moneylenders and won many converts among India's lower classes. Joseph Hawkes, the slide’s creator, spent much of his life producing and coloring lantern slides from his home in New York. This slide is part of Springfield College’s lantern slide series depicting Y.M.C.A. work in India, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar in the early twentieth century. The series was prepared by the Foreign Division of the American and Canadian Y.M.C.A, which established self-sustaining associations staffed by trained secretaries in foreign lands. Text on border reads, "Made by Joseph Hawkes New York City; 19; India Calcutta; Boys' Branch Reading Room."
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Publisher:
Springfield College
Notes:
Part of the Y.M.C.A. Work in India and Sri Lanka Lantern Slide Series
