Eva del Vakia Bowles

Eva del Vakia Bowles
1918
Born	(1875-01-24)January 24, 1875 Albany,Athens County,Ohio
Died	June 14, 1943(1943-06-14)(aged 68) Richmond, Virginia
Nationality	American
Other names	Eva D. Bowles
Occupation(s)	educator, social worker, organizer
Years active	1905–1943
Known for	first black woman to hold the position of general secretary of the YWCA

Eva del Vakia Bowles(1875–1943) was an American teacher and aYoung Women's Christian Associationorganizer inNew York City.When she began working at the New York City segregated YWCA inHarlem,she became the first black woman to be a general secretary of the organization. For eighteen years she organized black branches of the YWCA and expanded their services to community members. She received recognition from former presidentTheodore Rooseveltfor her work duringWorld War Ion behalf of the segregated Y.

Early life

Eva del Vakia Bowles was born on January 24, 1875, inAlbany, Ohioto Mary Jane (née Porter) and John Hawkes Bowles. Her father was the first black principal of a school inMarietta, Ohioand later served as one of the first black railroad postal clerks in Ohio. Her paternal grandfather, John Randolph Bowles was a Baptist minister and served as the chaplain of the55th Massachusetts Infantry Regimentduring thecivil war.After attending public schools in Albany, Bowles went on to continue her education at Bliss Business College inColumbuswhile taking summer classes atOhio State University.

Career

Bowles began her career as a teacher at several black colleges: Chandler Normal School inLe xing ton, Kentucky;St. Augustine's CollegeofRaleigh, North Carolina,andSt. Paul's SchoolinLawrenceville, Virginia.In 1905, while she was teaching in Virginia, Bowles was approached byAddie Waites Hunton,whose husband William was secretary of the ColoredYoung Men's Christian Association(YMCA) of Harlem. Hunton recruited Bowles to spearhead a project for the sister project, theYWCAassociation of New York, to address the needs of black women.When she took up the post, later that year, Bowles became the first black woman employed as a YWCA secretary in the United States.In 1908, she studied social work atColumbia Universityin the school of philanthropy.

After her studies, Bowles became a caseworker at the Associated Charities of Columbus, Ohio between 1908 and 1912.She returned to New York in 1913 to serve as secretary on the national board of the YWCA's Subcommittee for Colored Work. Bowles was charged with increasing services to black women. Despite segregation, she proposed that each town have only one "Y", as typically white branches had better access to funding and facilities. While it made black branches subordinate to white women's direction and barred them from many of the facilities, Bowles was convinced that the structure would give women of both races the opportunity to work together. DuringWorld War I,the YWCA provided funds to further expand services in the black communities and open industrial work centers, as well as recreational facilities. They also opened fifteen canteens, facilities to provide entertainment for soldiers and their families.Bowles recruitment was so successful that she increased the black staff from one to over sixty and was awarded $4,000 with an accommodation for her work from former presidentTheodore Rooseveltfrom his Nobel Prize funds.

Bowles continued to press the national board for more representation of black women at the local and national levels. In 1924, they gained the first representative on the national board and she was also successful in increasing the headquarter's black staff to nine members with three black field workers.She traveled the country opening YWCA branches and also pressed for the organization to expand their work in Africa and the Caribbean.In 1932, she resigned from the YWCA, having become disillusioned with their reorganization plans.Bowles had already been working for the National Colored Merchants Association, as association secretary, and the National Negro Business League, as chair of the women's auxiliary. When she left the YWCA, she joined their joint offices as an employee to help improve the economic opportunities of blacks.In 1943, at the onset ofWorld War II,Bowles was named executive director of Civilian Defense for theHarlemandRiversideareas of New York City.

Death and legacy

Bowles died June 14, 1943, at the Richmond Community Hospital inRichmond, Virginia,while on a visit to see her niece.The archives of the YWCA contain materials concerning Bowles work to expand the YWCA in the African American communities as well as her work during the First World War.

References

Bibliography

• Appiah, Kwame Anthony;Gates, Henry Louis Gates(2005).Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience.Oxford University Press. pp. 598–9.ISBN978-0-19-517055-9.
• Bracks, Lean'tin L.; Smith, Jessie Carney (2014).Black Women of the Harlem Renaissance Era.Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.ISBN978-0-8108-8543-1.
• Commire, Anne; Klezmer, Deborah (2007).Dictionary of Women Worldwide: 25,000 Women Through the Ages.Detroit, Michigan: Thomson Gale.ISBN978-0-7876-7585-1.Archived fromthe originalon 2018-11-14 – viaHighBeam Research.
• Hutson, Jean Blackwell(1971). "Bowles, Eva del Vakia". In Edward T. James; Janet Wilson James; Paul S. Boyer (eds.).Notable American Women, 1607–1950: A Biographical Dictionary.Harvard University Press. p.214.ISBN978-0-674-62734-5.
• "Eva Del Vakia Bowles".Humanities & Social Sciences Online.East Lansing, Michigan: Michigan State University. 28 Feb 2002. Archived fromthe originalon 2 February 2017.Retrieved2 February2017.republished from Jones, Adrienne Lash. (February 2000) "Bowles, Eva Del Vakia"American National Biography OnlineOxford, England: for the American Council of Learned Societies by Oxford University Press.{{cite web}}:CS1 maint: postscript (link)
• Robertson, Nancy Marie (2007).Christian Sisterhood, Race Relations, and the YWCA, 1906-46.Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press.ISBN978-0-252-03193-9.
• Rummel, Jack (2014).African-American Social Leaders and Activists.Infobase Publishing. pp. 16–17.ISBN978-1-4381-0782-0.
• Russell, Annie (2008)."Bowles, Eva del Vakia".In Susan Hill Lindley; Eleanor J. Stebner (eds.).The Westminster Handbook to Women in American Religious History.Westminster John Knox Press. p. 22.ISBN978-0-664-22454-7.
• "$400,000 to Be Spent for Work among Colored Girls".The New York Age.New York City, New York. September 28, 1918. p. 1.Retrieved2 February2017– viaNewspapers.
• "Development of the Colored Y.W.C.A".The New York Age.New York City, New York. March 16, 1916. p. 1.Retrieved2 February2017– viaNewspapers.and"Development of the Colored Y.W.C.A. (part 2)".The New York Age.New York City, New York. March 16, 1916. p. 7.Retrieved2 February2017– viaNewspapers.
• "Heads Civilian Defense".The New York Age.New York City, New York. January 16, 1943. p. 4.Retrieved2 February2017– viaNewspapers.
• "Leaves Y.W.C.A. Work".The New York Age.New York City, New York. April 30, 1932. p. 1.Retrieved2 February2017– viaNewspapers.
• "Miss Eva D. Bowles Inducted into Office as Full-Time Worker for C.M.A. Stores and Business League".The New York Age.New York City, New York. June 11, 1932. p. 1.Retrieved2 February2017– viaNewspapers.
• "Miss Eva D. Bowles, Pioneer Y Worker, Dies in Richmond".The New York Age.New York City, New York. June 19, 1943. p. 1.Retrieved2 February2017– viaNewspapers.
• "Y.W.C.A. Notes".Kansas City, Missouri: The Kansas City Sun. April 11, 1914. p. 4.Retrieved2 February2017– viaNewspapers.