THISDAY IN1918 IN THE RECORD

Sunday, May 5, 1918. A week of celebrations marking the grand opening of the new Troy Y. W. C. A. building at the corner of State and First streets begins this afternoon, The Record reports. The building has been donated to the Y by Mrs. George B. Cluett ( who is also the Troy Y’s president), Robert Cluett and Frederick F. Peabody. The building project began after 2,000 Troy women signed a petition to convert the Troy Young Women’s Association into a branch of the national Y. W. C. A. “The property is a princely gift to the women of Troy and vicinity,” the Sunday Budget reports, “and the beneficial results which it will yield to the community cannot be estimated. It will radiate a salutary influence that will be felt through the generations to come, for its plans for the welfare of all women, irrespective of creed or vocation, are practical and comprehensive.” Furnished rooms with hot and cold water will be rented for $ 1.50 a week – less than $ 26 in 2018 money – but “girls who cannot afford this will be provided for anyway.” For $ 3 a week, tenants will get “every conceivable homelike convenience.” Each floor has a “kimono room” for lounging and visiting as well as “special laundry facilities … so that the girls can do their own washing and ironing.” The building has a swimming pool in the basement and a fully equipped gymnasium on the first floor, where today’s opening ceremony takes place.

Mrs. Cluett introduces Rev. Henry R. Freeman as a man who “Aided much by his advice and interest in the plan of evolution.” In his dedicatory address, Freeman reviews the history of women’s “devotion to what is uplifting,” citing “Harriet Beecher Stowe’s endeavor for the slave, Frances Willard’s appeal for temperance, [ and] Emma Willard’s work as the pioneer of education for women.” He tells the gathering that the present is “the day of womanhood, when the mothers and daughters of our country give of their best and work in the name of Christ for the liberty of the world.”

Rumors of Troop Movements

An ominous editor’s note in the Budget refers to “many reports and rumors [ that] were in circulation last evening as to the movements of certain portions of the American infantry contingents.”

While “these rumors and reports were more or less definite and certain, and were perhaps more or less substantiated by the facts,” the editor abides by “the self- imposed censorship promulgated by the Committee on Public Information” and refuses to confirm or even describe the rumors.

It’s not hard, however, to infer that more Troy troops are on their way to Europe.

-- Kevin Gilbert