The Japanese Journal of American Studies, No. 31 (2020)
Copyright © 2020 Bruce P. Bottorff. All rights reserved. This work may be used, with thisnotice included, for noncommercial purposes. No copies of this work may be distributed,
electronically or otherwise, in whole or in part, without permission from the author.

Forging American Womanhood:
The Acculturation of Second-Generation
Immigrant Girls in Honolulu, 1917–1938

Bruce P. BOTTORFF*INTRODUCTION
In January 1917, Mary Dillingham Frear, president of the Young
Women’s Christian Association of Honolulu, announced her organization’scommitment to the education and acculturation of Hawaii’s native-borndaughters of Asian descent. In a special issue of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin,
she wrote of uplifting the territory’s diverse population by introducing
Christian ideals: “Have we not in our midst, in the Christian Associations
for our youth, men and women, a growing possibility of true democracy?”1
As wife of a former territorial governor and sister of Walter S. Dillingham,“the islands’ most powerful business leader,” Frear was intimately
connected to the minority white oligarchy that built fortunes on the backs of
Asian workers brought to Hawaii to meet the agricultural economy’s
demand for cheap labor.2 The Wellesley-educated Frear was a philanthropist
and respected community leader in her own right. In 1900, she and hermother, Emma Smith Dillingham, cofounded the YWCA of Honolulu toperpetuate the legacy of religiously inspired educational work of her
missionary grandmother, who established an English-language school for
Hawaiian children in the 1800s. Now, she would lead a group of Protestant*Assistant Professor, Kansai Gaidai University

65

66

BRUCE P. BOTTORFF

women determined to Americanize a generation of women and girls born in
the islands to migrant workers from China, Japan, Korea, and thePhilippines. More than six decades after the first Asian contract workers set
foot in the islands, many elite whites remained skeptical that the children offield laborers could be assimilated into the dominant community. By 1920,
Hawaii was “in the midst of a classic race and class struggle . . . between
two fundamental American principles—capitalism and democracy.”3
Twenty years earlier, male-dominated public debate over the annexationof the Hawaiian Islands—in Hawaii and in Washington—had been marked
by racially charged opinions concerning the capacity of nonwhite peoples
for democratic participation. Nevertheless, the territorial constitution,
enacted in April 1900, paved the way for broader involvement of nonwhites
in political life. The Organic Act, even as it ended the practice of contract
labor and granted voting rights to native Hawaiians, denied Asian migrant
workers “full-citizenship, equality, or participation in the sacred workings ofself-government.”4 Immigrant children born in the territory after 1898 wererecognized as US citizens, but it would be decades before they would be
eligible to vote. In the meantime, the Japanese community experienced
steady growth, augmented by women and children, who continued to arrive
until 1924, when the Exclusion Act barred immigration from Japan. At theirpeak in 1920, Japanese were the largest ethnic group in the islands at morethan 42 percent.5 Unexposed to the English language and American customs
in their homes, second-generation Japanese were caught between the ideasof their parents and those of their birthland. Public schools were nominallyresponsible for instilling in them American values, but sugar and pineapple
growers believed there was little to be gained by educating migrant children
beyond eighth grade; the more schooling they received the less likely theywould be to follow in their parents' footsteps as field laborers.6 As concerns
over their ability to assimilate the children of so large a group galvanizedruling-class whites, prominent churchwomen set out to socialize young
immigrant women and girls, a process for which no group in the rulingcommunity was prepared.
There is no shortage of scholarly writing about the lives of Hawaii’s
missionaries and the organized activities of their female descendants in the
public sphere.7 Like their upper-class counterparts in the continental UnitedStates, privileged island women made their public presence felt by forming
groups to coordinate religiously inspired benevolent, charitable, andeducational activities in the nineteenth century.8 There has been limited
historical focus, however, on the work of missionary daughters andFORGING AMERICAN WOMANHOOD

67

granddaughters through the YWCA of Honolulu.9 One reason for this is thenarrow perception of the association as an innocuous social and recreational
club for middle- and upper-class white women, particularly in the first
decade and a half of its existence. Another, more important reason, is thetendency of historians focusing on Hawaii to relegate women and girls to themargins of social relevance, an inclination often extended to institutions thatserved them.10 As I will show, however, understanding the internal dynamics
of the YWCA permits a deeper understanding of how the daughters of Asian
immigrants in Hawaii came to identify as Americans. World War I was acatalyst for expanding the local YWCA’s work with Oahu’s racially diverse
female population, as it moved to align more closely with the national
association’s coordination of wholesome entertainment for soldiers intraining camps across the country, including the Territory of Hawaii.11 The
interwar period saw a sustained effort on the part of the YWCA of Honolulu
to shape the gender, class, religious, and national identities of secondgeneration immigrant girls, responsibility for whom was largely
unaddressed by existing institutions.12
In this article, I examine the YWCA’s acculturation of Oahu’s multiethnic
teenage female population in the 1920s and 1930s through the creation oftransnational social spaces aimed at encouraging children’s acceptance ofAmerican values and Christian virtues. While my primary focus is on theacculturation of second-generation of women of Japanese descent, thearticle is framed in the context of religious, educational, and economic
controversies that gripped Honolulu in the early decades of the twentiethcentury, a period characterized by the growing involvement of white,
educated, Christian women in the nascent field of social work. Accordingly,
I explore the influence of race, class, and gender on interactions occurring
between second-generation Asians and privileged whites who worked for
the YWCA, both as volunteers and paid professionals. The YWCA of
Honolulu’s emergence as an organization supportive of the public schools
and social welfare agencies coincided with the advent of World War I, whenthousands of second-generation immigrant children attended school andentered the workforce. Beginning in 1918, it expanded its outreach andbegan engaging young migrant women between the ages of twelve andeighteen in “character building” activities as part of a socialization program
developed by the national YWCA and adopted for use in Honolulu toincorporate the daughters of plantation workers into the community as
productive workers and loyal Americans. The club methodology was also
used to engage and influence women seeking skilled and unskilled

68

BRUCE P. BOTTORFF

employment in the city. As a “highly formalized institution,” the YWCA
created transnational spaces in which to inculcate Christian and American
values in young women of Asian descent, while ensuring that they continued
to serve the minority white community, as their parents had done.13 Itsinteractions with immigrant girls were repressive and strongly reminiscentof the “social control” motivations of education and welfare institutions thatsought “to create a tractable and low-wage labor force . . . enforce disciplinein the workplace, [and] impose middle-class values and behavioral norms onlower-class and immigrant folk.”14
I.

BACKGROUND ON THE TWO YWCAs

The YWCA of Honolulu was established by descendants of Protestantmissionaries whose ancestors migrated to the Sandwich Islands from New
England in the nineteenth century. Many of its founding members belonged,
by birth or marriage, to Hawaii’s ruling haole (white) oligarchy, which held
authority over island political, business, and religious life. In the first decadeand a half of the twentieth century, the local YWCA offered religious andrecreational instruction to its predominantly white, middle-class members,
who were part of a racial minority making up just 7 percent of the territorial
population.15 The social spaces they inhabited in urban Honolulu represented
a bastion of relative luxury and privilege—featuring education, dining, andfitness facilities—far removed from the lives of immigrants laboring on
sugar cane and pineapple plantations just a few miles from town. The
founders saw the association as an agent of social melioration whose
programs served as a bulwark of traditional Christian values they believed
would come under siege as the population grew and diversified.
The Honolulu association was connected to, yet autonomous from, thenational YWCA, but by the time the United States declared war on Germany
in April 1917, its education programs were increasingly influenced bytrained consultants from the continental United States. These “secretaries,”
as the national organization called them, were grounded in social work, anemerging career option for college-educated women. Members of this newclass of professionals arrived in Honolulu in greater numbers during and
immediately after the war, leaving their mark in the form of outreachprograms that changed the scope and direction of the local association’swork. Their field reports indicated an ongoing fascination with Hawaii’ssocial diversity, the legacy of more than a half century of transnationalmigration from Asia and Europe. Sustained cooperation between these two

FORGING AMERICAN WOMANHOOD

69

groups of privileged women—one local, the other national—exposed
critical differences in the way they viewed their mission. Most Hawaii-born
oligarchs involved with the YWCA were evangelical churchwomen whose
approach to the education of immigrant girls stemmed from a sense ofnoblesse oblige and desire to preserve the established socioeconomichierarchy. Conversely, visiting representatives of the YWCA of the USA
were social progressives who sought to guide women in local communities
in the philosophy and purpose of the organization as it evolved over time.
By the end of the 1910s, a source of friction between the two was thenational YWCA’s growing “commitment to the political process as an agentof reform,” which missionary descendants such as Mary Frear viewed withambivalence, given her close family ties to island business interests.16 Bothgroups regarded the education of immigrant children as a form ofAmericanization, but local board women viewed the work through anevangelical lens, while professional advisers were driven by a reform
impulse that grew stronger in the second decade of the twentieth century.
II.

BUDDHISM AND THE LANGUAGE SCHOOL CONTROVERSYThe acculturation of second-generation Asian girls occurred in the context
of related religious and educational controversies that simmered in the latenineteenth century. Following the introduction of Buddhism to Hawaii in
1889, plantation managers recognized its “stabilizing effect” on workers.17
Over the objection of Christian leaders, who viewed Buddhism as acompetitive threat whose tenets were fundamentally un-American, planterspermitted Japanese priests to attend to workers’ spiritual needs, believing it
would help them endure the hardships of drudgery. The concerns ofChristian church leaders were heightened by the spread of Buddhistsponsored churches and schools encouraging nisei children’s retention ofJapanese language and culture. Despite the persistent efforts of prominent
Christian clerics, such as the Reverend Takie Okumura, who spearheaded
the establishment of Japanese language schools that promoted Christianreligious values, less than 3 percent of Japanese in Hawaii had “formally
accepted Christianity” by 1917.18 The tempestuous religious climate was
fueled by racism and distrust, as Christian and Buddhist evangelists
struggled for the hearts and minds of immigrants.
Concerns in the predominantly white Christian community came to a headin the 1920s over the proliferation of Japanese language schools, despite arevision of the schools’ curricula “to better prepare local-born Japanese for

70

BRUCE P. BOTTORFF

American citizenship.”19 In an effort to diffuse community tensions
stemming from the language schools, issei parents established an
educational association to delete the content of textbooks seen as“encouraging emperor worship and Japanese nationalism.”20 Still, the rapid
spread of Japanese language schools stoked the fears of Christian clerics,
who were convinced that the schools represented “a menace to theAmericanization of the Territory.”21 When the century began, there were ten
Japanese language schools in Hawaii, enrolling about 1,500 students. By
1920, an estimated 98 percent of the 20,651 nisei students enrolled in publicschools also attended Japanese schools after their public school classes weredone for the day. No serious opposition to language schools was organizeduntil World War I, when “a wave of exaggerated patriotism swept thenation.” In 1920, the territorial legislature passed a law, Act 30, requiring
foreign language schools to ensure that instructors reinforced ideals of
democracy and taught US history and institutions, and limiting them to one
hour of instruction per day. Act 30 was especially punitive for the working
parents of younger children, as it prohibited first and second graders from
attending language schools until they learned English, thus eliminating theschools as a form of childcare.22
The religion and language school controversies were inextricably linked
with attitudes about Americanization, identity, and conflicting assumptions
about assimilation. In her assessment of the influence of the Japanese
language schools in the lives of first- and second-generation Japanese,
Eileen Tamura posited that while many issei parents believed the schools
would help “bridge the language and cultural gaps separating themselves
and their children,” both issei community leaders and Americanizers
assumed they were more effective in transferring the language and values ofJapan then they actually were. Interviews with nisei adults who attended theschools as children suggest that “language schools were ineffective agents ofcultural transmission because the Nisei . . . were generally indifferent to theschools” and more interested in their regular schools where instruction wasin English. Tamura also noted that Japanese parents believed that theJapanese schools provided “moral education” that was “compatible with
American values and helped Nisei become better citizens.”23
III. AMERICANIZATION AND THE GIRL RESERVES
Religious intolerance among whites in Honolulu was hardened by theAmericanization movement that began at the turn of the century and grew

FORGING AMERICAN WOMANHOOD

71

into a “feverish crusade” during and immediately after the World War I. Yet,the YWCA of Honolulu’s approach to immigrant incorporation—as reflectedin the influence of visiting consultants from the national office—called forpreserving ethnic cultures and traditions to help in easing their adjustment to
American life.24 When the national YWCA began formulating principles thatwould guide their work with foreign communities, they consulted Edith
Terry Bremer, a graduate of the University of Chicago, whose views on
immigration were influenced by Chicago settlement workers and scholars.
These so-called liberal assimilationists were “sympathetic to the human andsocial plight of immigrants in the new land,” and “rejected harsh demands
for immediate Americanization.” Their views had a “shaping influence” on
Bremer, who conceived of “service-oriented agencies designed to protect
immigrant women, address their problems, and facilitate their adjustment tolife in the United States.”25 She developed YWCA-sponsored International
Institutes offering the immigrant mothers of American-born children
opportunities to learn English and practice sewing, cooking, and otherhome-making skills as part of a “broader and more coherent program ofeducation, recreation, and case work.” The YWCA’s work with school-age
girls and young working women combined with programs for firstgeneration women formed the twin pillars of its outreach to immigrantfemales. Historian Raymond Mohl indicated that by the 1920s Bremer’s
ideas evolved under the influence of New York City educator Isaac Berkson,
who advanced a “community theory” of immigrant work that sought to“preserve the immigrant heritage, transmit the old culture to the second
generation in America, and generally promote cultural pluralism.”26
In 1919, the YWCA of Honolulu launched a character-building programfor second-generation girls under the direction of nationally trained
secretary Gertrude Gogin, who developed a Christian-based method ofgroup social work derived from techniques that sought to impress moral andpatriotic values on teenage girls during the war. Settlement workers on the
US mainland had organized women and children into groups for education
and recreation since the late nineteenth century.27 Gogin’s methods drew onsocial settlements, playground and recreation movements, progressive
education and social reform movements, and the developing fields of
psychology and sociology.28 The YWCA’s program, called the Girl
Reserves, involved the organization of schoolgirls into clubs, supervised byadult leaders who encouraged their participation in activities intended tofoster ideals of Christian morality, self-sacrifice, and group unity. An early
manual indicated that the Girl Reserves program “endeavors to give girls

72

BRUCE P. BOTTORFF

through normal, natural activities the habits, insights and ideals which will
make them responsible Christian women; capable and ready to help makeAmerica more true to its best hopes and traditions.”29 The program wasembraced by conservative, evangelical founders of the YWCA of Honolulu,
who worried about un-American, non-Christian influences in the lives of thecity’s native-born Asian children. It was a fluid form of outreach thatallowed adult leaders considerable autonomy to adjust program activities
depending on the young women with whom they worked. Some clubadvisers emphasized socialization and character education while others
promoted group cohesion through recreation. Notwithstanding differences inemphasis, leadership development and democratic participation were key
elements of club training.
As she surveyed Honolulu’s immigrant community, Gogin was struck by
how “Americanized” its children behaved, despite their “foreign”
appearance. During a visit to one public school she watched a multiracial
group of students pledging allegiance to the Stars and Stripes and singing“America the Beautiful” “with a fervor one does not always find in schools
on the mainland.” At a club meeting for schoolgirls, she was greeted with astirring rendition of the patriotic song “Over There” by a group of Japanese,
Chinese, Korean, and Hawaiian girls:
One could not help but wonder what was to be their future and thefuture of America when one learned the next day that many of the very
little “Yanks” were sent to native language schools for three hours after
the regular public school session was over and that in the homes ofmany of them not one word of English was spoken and not one
American custom observed. How are we to make them real Americans
with the highest standards and what must be the part of the Y.W.C.A. isa question which is constantly before us.30
Armed with an understanding of the influence of the language schools andan appreciation for the challenge of countering the “foreign” influence in thehomes of girls they were targeting, YWCA club organizers set about the taskof Americanization. Girls who elected to participate in club activities wereseparated by age, interest, and institutional affiliation into three categories:
grade schoolgirls, high school girls, and “business girls.”31

FORGING AMERICAN WOMANHOOD

IV.

73

CLUB WORK ON THE ISLAND OF OAHU

Field reports of club advisers offer a glimpse into a world of transnationalsocial interaction, suggesting ways in which young women asserted
themselves in response to the YWCA’s efforts to forge group harmony.
Early organizers discovered that encouraging self-governance through theappointment of club officers could be challenging, as many girls accepted
their perceived place in Hawaii’s racial hierarchy. Adviser Marie Elliot
observed, for example, that girls of nonwhite ethnicity deferred instinctively
to their white counterparts: “At Kalihiwaena [intermediate school, the girls]
had been practicing for a gymnastic exhibition to be given at the Kalihi
Hospital at Thanksgiving time, but the only haole girl in the club decided
that it was not worthwhile to go over, so the rest of the group decided to giveup their Thanksgiving program.”32 Another adviser was met with a similar
reaction when an Asian girl was elected club president at the Territorial
Normal and Training School in 1921. “This has caused some trouble in thehigh school because a Chinese girl was chosen, whom the white girls would
not follow,” she wrote in her report. “In order to get at the heart of thematter a meeting has been called of the white girls alone, for discussion andto challenge them to stand by the Orientals as a piece of Americanization
work.”33 Another issue hampering early club organization was the low levelof participation of Japanese schoolgirls, something attributed to thelanguage schools’ “Buddhist influence.”
Honolulu club activities centered on four areas viewed as essential toyoung women’s development: health, knowledge, service, and spirit. The
emphasis on physical fitness is clear in photographs from the 1920s, whichshow uniformed schoolgirls participating in gymnastics, folk dances, Indianclub-and-wand exercises, and running races. Given the lack of recreational
programs in the public schools, hikes, camping trips, and all-day picnics atthe popular Beach Club in Waikiki were among frequent outdoor activities,
as were interclub competitions. Typically, thirty minutes of each clubmeeting was devoted to physical activity. The educational side of club life
was similarly tied to the girls’ physical well-being. Art, music, andcitizenship training were employed in such a way as to be interesting rather
than academically demanding. A common theme of group discussions
centered on how to achieve the qualities of the ideal American girl. Girls
were instructed in manners, posture, etiquette, and habits of proper dress,
and taught to attend to hygienic details of hair and nails. Girlhood training
also included an introduction to domestic skills meant to prepare young

74

BRUCE P. BOTTORFF

women for the traditional role of American housewife. This type of
instruction was of ironic practicality, as the YWCA was simultaneously
grooming girls for employment as domestic servants in the homes of
wealthy families. Cooking, sewing, home economics, and decorative arts
were standard features of the YWCA club curriculum and were popularamong members. A third area of club life was the expectation that young
women, regardless of background or social status, would satisfy their civic
responsibility through community service. Girl Reserves visited theeconomically disadvantaged at area hospitals and social welfare institutions.
They sang and performed gymnastics or skits during regular visits to theKing’s Daughters Home, Kalihi Orphanage, Children’s Hospital, Detention
Home, and other service agencies. At Christmas and other holidays, they
made flower leis to donate to the Social Service Bureau, delivered food andtoys to indigent families and raised money for them. Sometimes, the lessonsof Christian charity hit home with poignancy, as when members of the Girl
Reserves Victory Club raised money to buy fixings for a Thanksgiving
dinner for a widow and her children. Adviser Alice Moore noted that thegesture had “meant real sacrifice for these girls and when the name of theneedy woman was given in the next club meeting one of the girls arose andwith great satisfaction announced that it was her aunt who had been so
generously helped by the club.”34
Spirit was arguably the most challenging area of club emphasis. From its
inception as a youth movement, the Girl Reserves was intended to provide
girls with “opportunities for practicing Christian living.”35 The YWCA
stopped short of direct proselytizing, but advisers did not discouragereactions interpreted as evidence that the religious message was getting
through. At a rally attended by 150 junior and senior club girls, for example,
the Tse Mui Club “presented a pantomime showing what Christianity had
done for Chinese girls.”36 YWCA literature suggested obliquely that clubs
should encourage “Christian thinking and being” without specifying how
secretaries might walk the line between encouraging a Christian orientationand trying to save young souls. While religious education was regarded as“an underlying principle which cannot be separated from the whole fabric”
of a Christian’s life, the Girl Reserves manual indicated that “much of thegirl’s training in worship should come directly through her relationship with
the Church.”37
YWCA of Honolulu leaders viewed the growing popularity of the Girl
Reserves as an indication of its influence in the community. During the1920s, when club efforts were concentrated in urban Honolulu, club

FORGING AMERICAN WOMANHOOD

75

membership fluctuated from six hundred to about one thousand participants
per year.38 In the next decade, participation doubled as activity expanded torural plantations and schools where recreational opportunities were limited.
Concerns of social workers, educators, businesspeople, and law enforcement
officers hastened the spread of the movement. YWCA and other community
leaders felt it unwise to neglect the needs of hundreds of girls attending ruralschools that offered no after-school activities. More worrisome were thegirls who left school with no vocational skills and limited employment
options. Some women viewed clubs as social medicine in the fight against
crime and juvenile delinquency. If Hawaii’s forgotten teens were left to fend
for themselves, without the help of an agency offering friendship andguidance in their adolescent years, there was no telling what might becomeof them. “The future problem which such a group presents to thecommunity,” wrote Girl Reserve adviser Esther Carter in 1931, “is one not
to be disregarded for long.” Citing the need for clubs in rural areas of Oahu
that were further away from YWCA facilities in downtown Honolulu, shewarned that “every school community there is harboring a group which is astinder ready for the spark.”39
Later that year, rural club work began in earnest under Esther Park, adevout Christian of Korean parentage, who achieved near legendary status
in Hawaii and her homeland during more than thirty years with the YWCA.
Park was just a year old when her parents migrated to the islands in 1903 as
contract laborers. She went on to attend the University of Hawaii and, after abrief teaching career, was recruited by the YWCA of Honolulu to oversee
the expansion of rural clubs.40 Within months of starting the “long dreamedof rural work,” Park organized fourteen junior high school clubs boasting amembership of three hundred fifty-four girls. Her efforts included theearliest attempts to organize out-of-school girls. A survey indicated thatabout half of all rural girls who left school after the eighth or ninth grades
looked for work in their communities or in town. The other half stayedhome to help their parents.41
V.

SIGNS OF TENSION AT THE YWCA

From the inception of the Girl Reserves in Hawaii, representatives of thenational organization were ambivalent about its successful application in theislands. Gogin was one of the first visiting secretaries to candidly assess thecommunity’s social and economic power structures and suggest that theinsularity of Hawaii’s oligarchs posed a threat to the progress of association

76

BRUCE P. BOTTORFF

work. She believed that plantation-style paternalism and the rigid social
hierarchy hampered the advancement of democratic ideals:
The problem of leadership for all agencies [is] a great one. The same
women are used on all boards and committees. Moreover, this small
proportion of whites has meant intermarriage and a curious interrelationship, personal and business, which can only come in an insularcommunity. . . . There are certain controlling agencies which must
always be considered as for example, the Sugar Planter’s [sic]Association, composed of perhaps the most influential men, theHawaiian Board of Missions, the Pineapple Plantation men, and certain
other commercial and shipping interests.42
Characterizing the influence of “controlling agencies” as a “delicate
situation,” Gogin advised her national colleagues to proceed with caution,
lest elite whites see their authority threatened by rapidly expanding workwith the daughters of plantation workers. Such concerns were grounded in
the national association’s gradual embrace of progressive labor reforms inthe second decade of the century. Until the 1910s the weight of the YWCA’s
national reputation had rested on religiously based service programs
intended to safeguard women’s physical and moral health. Programs
embodied a protective element in which advisers acted as “moral mothers,”
promoting values fundamental to the achievement of American womanhood.
After the war, progressive YWCA leaders became increasingly vocal about
the need to address social inequalities associated with industrial capitalism.
They coaxed the national organization into endorsing industrial-reform
standards, including the abolition of child labor and the introduction of theeight-hour workday. The women adopted these pro-labor positions at
national conventions, even as local associations across the country—
including the YWCA of Honolulu—continued to emphasize noontime
morale-building exercises for working women. The result, according to one
historian, was “an internecine competition . . . between the Industrial
Department and other factions within the YWCA.”43 Historian Mary S. Sims
referred to the 1910s as a period of “social awakening” for the nationalorganization, as it edged away from a traditional evangelical orientation thatemphasized religion as a personal experience and toward the “application of
Christian principles to social and economic problems.”44
At the 1920 national convention in Cleveland, Ohio, delegates adopted asixteen-point platform known as the “Social Ideals of the Churches,” theFORGING AMERICAN WOMANHOOD

77

most comprehensive of the industrial-reform resolutions adopted by theorganization to date. The most controversial plank was an affirmation of theright of workers to bargain collectively. Another hotly debated resolution
called for the use of association resources and influence “to help secure such
legislation as shall promote the welfare of young women.”45 It was a
revolution of a kind for many women in attendance, some remembering it as
one of the most inspiring religious conventions they had ever attended.
Others believed the YWCA had become too radical and that it should “stayout of politics.” The convention prompted some notable resignations,
including the abrupt defection of one prominent national board member who
stalked out of the proceedings in midsession.46
Honolulu sent two representatives to Cleveland that year, the first time anisland delegation had attended a national convention. There were no
resulting defections among prominent members of the local board; still,news of the organization’s progressive turn could not have been far from thedelegation’s thoughts. Nineteen-twenty was a volatile year in Hawaii labor
relations, as more than three-quarters of Oahu’s plantation workforce went
on strike for better wages and working conditions. In the months before theconvention, Mary Frear informed her fellow officers that, while attending aseparate conference in San Francisco, she had been “charged by the[YWCA] Field Office to come home and think very hard” about getting
more involved in the lives of working women. Board minutes indicate thatthe association’s executive director recommended that the Honolulu YWCA
“take some action in case help was needed by women and girls in the big
compounds where the oriental strikers are gathering.”47 No official positionon the grievances of the striking workers was adopted, but she encouraged
the YWCA to consider ways of assisting women whose lives were affectedby labor unrest.
VI. THE BUSINESS CLUB MOVEMENTThe Honolulu YWCA had begun organizing the first clubs for “working
girls” in “skilled” occupations as early as 1916, but activity was confined
initially to Caucasian women. One of the first was the Honolulu Business
Girls’ Club, established by sixty young women “engaged in business or
employed in clerical or mercantile work” in the downtown area.48 At a social
gathering in the spring of that year, businessman and territorial governorto-be Wallace R. Farrington expressed the community’s support for the clubby noting that “the principal things that a club like this engenders are

78

BRUCE P. BOTTORFF

enthusiasm, a uniform spirit of courtesy, the desire for giving real servicevalue, and the effort to know one’s job better.”49 By all accounts, this earlyclub served a social and recreational function. After the war, the businessclub movement was expanded to include “unskilled” young women of
mixed race in the city’s “industrial” occupations. Employees of thedowntown laundries were among the first to organize working girls’ clubs.
YWCA staff and volunteers visited owners and discussed the benefits ofclub life for the young women and the businesses involved. Secretary Grace
Potter suggested that these clubs were “worthwhile for the workers who areaccustomed to rushing back to their places of work as soon as they havefinished a hurried lunch.”50 After a visit to the American Sanitary Laundry a
few months later, she observed that “the more the laundry is visited thegreater the need for wholesome recreation at the noon hour is realized.”51
Managers of the American Sanitary Laundry and French Laundry
encouraged employees to participate in recreational activity during theirlunch break to raise morale and boost productivity. Activities ranged fromsinging and breathing exercises to sewing and English lessons. As the clubs
spread to city bakeries and the pineapple cannery, testimonials indicated the
support of other local businesses, including Love’s Biscuit and Bread
Company: “We can testify to the excellent influence of the Young Women’s
Christian Association among the girls who have been employed in our
packing department. It has helped them educationally and physically. It has
raised their standards of health and living. We believe in the Y.W.C.A.”52
Board minutes and club reports were generally mute on working conditions.
When passing references were made to wages earned or hours worked, little
or no follow-up was provided.
Meanwhile, the job market was tightening due to an apparent increase in
the number of Caucasian females making their way to the islands from thecontinental United States. Newspapers told of single women drawn to
Hawaii by a favorable male-to-female ratio and romantic notions that
Honolulu was a “paradise for the unmarried girl [and] that all she must do is. . . come over, work for a short while and marry a sugar planter.”53 In
response, the Honolulu YWCA established an employment bureau to serve
as a “clearing house of occupational activities for girls and women” under
the direction of “efficiency expert” and visiting secretary Kathryn Power. In
1923, the YWCA expanded employment services at the request of the local
Chamber of Commerce, and it became more directly involved in job
placement. During the first month of 1924, Power’s office registered thirtyfive women looking for stenographer positions and placed eight. A monthFORGING AMERICAN WOMANHOOD

79

earlier, twenty-eight women had come looking for clerical jobs, but only five
managed to secure work. Another reason for the worsening employment
outlook was greater competition among the daughters of planation workers
for a limited number of desirable city jobs. The resulting labor surplus
exacerbated the tendency of employers to categorize women’s work abilities
by ethnicity. At the same time, YWCA clubs played a role in influencing the
bleak job prospects for young women to the extent that character-building
activities emphasizing citizenship, responsibility, and leadershipdevelopment fostered ambitions that outpaced opportunities. More females
were finishing high school and going on to college, but employment optionsin Honolulu remained limited. The YWCA saw an increase in the number ofjob seekers for whom few opportunities existed, a situation that worsened
during the Great Depression. The employment office registered 2,500
female job seekers in 1928, 3,300 in 1930, and more than 4,700 in 1931.
That same year, employers listed 2,700 openings with the YWCA, and 1,900
women were placed, most of them in domestic service.54
VII.

HELP WANTED: DOMESTIC SERVANTS

Year after year, domestic service was the one occupation in whichavailable positions outpaced applicants. Indeed, no field of employment
more clearly illustrated the dominant culture’s rigid attitudes about women,
work, race, and class. Census figures from the beginning of the century
show that domestic and personal-service jobs were the largest
nonagricultural source of employment for women in the territory.55 As the
Honolulu association expanded and diversified its membership, this line ofwork seemed to have an impact on women at every level—from board
members to club girls—since the former relied on servants in their own
homes, and the association sought to match women with private requests forhousemaids. Accordingly, demand for household servants at the YWCA’s
employment department was nearly always double the number ofapplicants.
The notion of domestic service as a “respectable” occupation for young
women came easily to upper- and middle-class leaders of the YWCA—bothon the mainland United States and in Hawaii—because it provided
protective features consistent with traditional programs. At the end of thenineteenth century, moral reformers in northeastern American cities viewed
domestic service as a comparatively safe employment alternative for socalled women adrift. “In the middle-class household,” one historian wrote,

80

BRUCE P. BOTTORFF“the girl could remain under the watchful eye of a moral woman, and thus
avoid the corruption and evil influences in other types of employment.”56
Domestic service offered steady wages, regular meals, and the protection ofa surrogate family.57 But household employment also held the potential for
exploitation. Though some employers showed parental affection for theircharges, the relationship was prone to abuse. Lack of uniformity among
employers, long hours, limited privacy, and unclear expectations plagued thefield. Wealthy families in Hawaii had long complained of the challenge offinding and keeping good help, such that by the mid-1930s, YWCA
employment surveys indicated that Honolulu women considered almost anyother type of work—in laundries, stores, hotels, and restaurants—preferable
to domestic service.
It was more than a pocketbook issue to the Honolulu YWCA’s youngest
members, many of whom saw it as an occupation that extended attitudes ofpaternalism that their parents had experienced as plantation workers. By the
1930s, YWCA women at the highest levels of the Honolulu association were
wrestling with the racial and moral dimensions of an issue on which there
were sharp differences of opinion. Some shared the view of Mary L. Cady,
who addressed the issue publicly after serving as director of the local
association for four years: “Our outstanding problem here at the YWCA isthat of the young girls and women who are seeking employment and who
haven’t a chance, except in domestic service.”58 By that time, nearly 90
percent of the jobs listed at the employment bureau were for housemaids.
Cady spoke for many privileged Honolulu women who believed that
immigrant daughters should be realistic about their prospects: “We must
train our young women to be good housekeepers, to have resources withinthemselves; to be contented with the lives they will live. Home economics
should be the most important study for the majority of the young women of
Hawaii; they should abandon the false standards which have convinced
them that they should seek ‘white collar’ jobs.”59
Others rejected the suggestion that a woman’s occupational suitability
might be influenced by her parents’ race. Employment secretary Jane
Dranga, who was trained in the national YWCA’s methods and had spent
several years working in Honolulu, based her perspective on interviews with
15,000 young women over a five-year period and concluded that many
employment hurdles confronting second-generation Asian women werecompounded by pervasive stereotypes. Interviews with nisei women, inparticular, suggested that they were frequently recommended to employers
seeking “quiet” and “scrupulously neat” housemaids:

FORGING AMERICAN WOMANHOOD

81

The demands of the employers in this occupation present something ofa paradox. They look for the servile attitude of the immigrant while atthe same time and in the same person they require the ability to speak
English and to be readily adaptable to modern household equipment.
The modern Occidental pattern of living has been acquired by our
Oriental peoples at the expense of the former obsequious and deferring
attitude of servants towards master.60
Dranga’s willingness to raise such sensitive issues publicly was notable.
She had joined the association as a club leader and gone on to direct its
employment bureau, remaining in that position long enough to see theadoption of standards for domestic employment in 1938. The annual
meeting that year featured a panel discussion with representatives of theassociation’s diverse constituencies—including a household employee, a“business girl,” a young married woman, a member of the University of
Hawaii student association, and several members of the Girl Reserves. The
discussion touched on issues facing women from each group, including
family relationships, religious attitudes, and employment. While it did not
immediately result in an endorsement of the right of employees to bargain
collectively, it was the clearest indication to date of the local YWCA’s
acceptance of democratic participation across racial and class lines. It wasalso symbolic of the Honolulu association’s tentative acceptance of the
progressive policies of the national YWCA. The resulting code of standards
placed limits on the number of work hours, suggested improvements inliving conditions, and recognized the need for employee privacy. It also
called for “development of a new attitude on the part of the employers to
help employees feel that they may be proud of their occupations.”61
Despite such apparent progress, Dranga left the Honolulu YWCA threemonths later. A local newspaper editorialized that she had “incurred thecriticism she was raising the standards of employment too high,” and thatsome employers believed that she expected attitudes to change too quickly.62
Dranga’s departure also revealed tensions between volunteer members of thelocal board and professionally trained staff. By ruffling the feathers of the
Honolulu association’s elite board members, she exemplified the progressive
attitude of national specialists who brought incremental change to accepted
ways of doing things. Nevertheless, eighteen years after the Clevelandconvention, Honolulu lagged in its acceptance of progressive reforms.
Institutional complacency and a traditional interpretation of the association’s
mission as a provider of services rather than a force for change characterized

82

BRUCE P. BOTTORFF

the position of the local YWCA well into the 1930s.
CONCLUSION
Social historians have devoted little attention to the YWCA of Honolulu’srole in the acculturation of second-generation immigrant females in the
1920s and 1930s. Through a program known as the Girl Reserves, it sought
to unite the school-age daughters of Oahu’s ethnically diverse communities
under a common umbrella and instill in them qualities of leadership,
citizenship, and Christian virtue. YWCA club activities for young working
women, ostensibly aimed at enhancing recreational opportunities andoffering outlets for wellness and personal fulfillment, also supported
employers’ aims to boost morale and productivity. More troubling was the
YWCA’s influence in limiting the career aspirations of second-generation
Asian women by encouraging their acceptance of employment as domestic
servants. By reinforcing racial stereotypes, the agency’s employment bureau
served as an instrument of repression, whose paternalistic practices were
reminiscent of tactics employed by sugar plantations to keep workers intheir place. Thus, the YWCA of Honolulu reinforced the “hierarchy of labororganized by race” that characterized social and political life in Hawaii inthe first four decades of the twentieth century.63
But clubs also reflected the Honolulu association’s gradual evolution fromprovider of religious and recreational services to agent for social change.
When the national association embraced increasingly progressive reforms inthe second decade of the century, resulting tensions prompted local board
women to question their role in hampering the social mobility of secondand third-generation immigrant women. Reforms were slow in coming, butby the end of the 1930s, the YWCA sponsored open discussions that led tothe adoption of a code of standards for employment of domestic servants.
Accordingly, club activities may be viewed as laying the groundwork for thedevelopment of leadership skills, acceptance of democratic principles, andgradual transfer of civic authority to the city’s multiethnic females in theyears prior to World War II.
NOTES
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, January 27, 1917.
Walter F. Frear was Hawaii’s third territorial governor and former chief justice of theterritorial supreme court. See David E. Stannard, Honor Killing: How the Infamous “Massie
Affair” Transformed Hawai‘i (New York: Viking, 2005), 1, 255.
1
2

FORGING AMERICAN WOMANHOOD

83

3
Judith Dean Gething, “The Educational and Civic Leadership of Elsie Wilcox, 1920–
1932,” Hawaiian Journal of History 16 (1982): 189.
4
Matthew Frye Jacobson, Barbarian Virtues: The United States Encounters Foreign
Peoples at Home and Abroad, 1876–1917 (New York: Hill and Wang, 2000), 234; Lauren L.
Basson, White Enough to Be American? Race Mixing, Indigenous People, and theBoundaries of State and Nation (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008), 121.
5
Andrew W. Lind, Hawaii’s People, 3rd ed. (Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1967),
28–31.
6
Judith Dean Gething Hughes, Women and Children First: The Life and Times of Elsie
Wilcox of Kauai (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1996), 64.
7
Patricia Grimshaw, Paths of Duty: American Missionary Wives in Nineteenth-Century
Hawaii (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1989); for educational and religious impulses
guiding the public activities of missionary descendants, see Albert F. Judd, Missionary
Album: Portraits and Biographical Sketches of the American Protestant Missionaries to the
Hawaiian Islands (Honolulu: Hawaiian Mission Children’s Society, 1969); and Gwenfread
Allen, Bridge Builders: The Story of Theodore and Mary Atherton Richards (Honolulu:
Hawaii Conference Foundation, 1970).
8
Representative of feminist scholarship in this area are Anne Firor Scott, Natural Allies:
Women’s Associations in American History (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991);
Nancy A. Hewitt, Women’s Activism and Social Change (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press, 1984); and Pricilla Murolo, The Common Ground of Womanhood (Urbana: University
of Illinois Press, 1997). For women’s associations in Hawaii, see Margit Misangyi Watts,
High Tea at Halekulani: Feminist Theory and American Clubwomen (Brooklyn, NY: Carlson
Publishing, 1993).
9
Exceptions include Judith Dean Gething Hughes, Women and Children First: The Lifeand Times of Elsie Wilcox of Kauai (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1996); and Bruce
P. Bottorff, “Foundations of Influence: YWCA of Honolulu Structures and the Assertion of
Moral Authority, 1900–1927,” Hawaiian Journal of History 52 (2018): 117–42.
10
Recent national and international research takes the organized activity of younger girls
more seriously. Examples include Jennifer Helgren, American Girls and Global
Responsibility: A New Relation to the World during the Early Cold War (New Brunswick, NJ:
Rutgers University Press, 2017); and Jennifer Helgren and Colleen A. Vasconcellos, eds.,
Girlhood: A Global History (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2010).
11
Ralph S. Kuykendall in Hawaii in the World War (Honolulu: The Historical Commission,1928) devotes two chapters to the YWCA of Honolulu’s war work under the Wilson
administration’s Commission on Training Camp Activities.
12
Research tangentially focused on the Honolulu YWCA has dealt with its influence in the
lives of specific immigrant groups and individuals. See Anne Soon Choi, “‘Hawaii Has Been
My America’: Generation, Gender, and Korean Immigrant Experience in Hawaii Before
World War II,” American Studies 45, no. 3 (2004): 139–55; and Rika Lee, “Inventing Korean
Tradition in Hawaii: Race Relations and Modernization of Korean Immigrant Women in
Prewar Hawaii,” Journal of Korean Association of Women’s History 26 (June 2017): 27–56.
13
Thomas Faist, “Transnationalism,” in Steven J. Gold and Stephanie J. Nawyn, eds.,
Routledge International Handbook of Migration Studies (London: Routledge, 2013), 451–52.
14
Clarke A. Chambers, “Toward a Redefinition of Welfare History,” Journal of American
History 73, no. 2 (Sept. 1986): 416. Published online by Oxford University Press on behalf ofOrganization of American Historians. Accessed March 18, 2019, https://www.jstor.org/
stable/1908228.
15
Eileen H. Tamura, Americanization, Acculturation, and Ethnic Identity: The Nisei
Generation in Hawaii (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 58.

84

BRUCE P. BOTTORFF

16
Nancy Boyd, Emissaries: The Overseas Work of the American YWCA, 1895–1970, (NewYork: Woman’s Press, 1986), 81.
17Louise H. Hunter, Buddhism in Hawaii (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1971), 33;
Tamura, Americanization, 15.
18
Hunter, Buddhism in Hawaii, 56, 95.
19
Ibid., 97.
20
Tamura, Americanization, 61.
21
Hunter, Buddhism in Hawaii, 90.
22
Tamura, Americanization, 146–49.
23
Ibid., 154–58.
24
Tamura’s assessment that “Americanizers . . . sought to strip immigrants of their native
customs” does not appear to have considered the influence of the national YWCA;
Americanization, 52, 55.
25
Raymond A. Mohl, “Cultural Pluralism in Immigrant Education: The YWCA’s
International Institutes, 1910–1940,” in Nina Mjagkij and Margaret Spratt, eds., Men and
Women Adrift: The YMCA and the YWCA in the City (New York: New York University Press,
1997), 114–15.
26
Mohl, “Cultural Pluralism,” 115.
27
James Leiby, A History of Social Welfare and Social Work in the United States (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1978), 133.
28
Kenneth E. Reid, From Character Building to Social Treatment: The History of the Use ofGroups in Social Work (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981), xiii.
29
The Girl Reserve Movement: A Manual for Advisers (New York: Woman’s Press, 1921),
41.
30
Gertrude Gogin, “Report to the City Committee, January 10 to March 10, 1919,”
University of Hawaii, Hamilton Library, microfilm D00036, reel 1.
31
The YWCA’s organization for young working women followed along similar lines to thatof the Girl Reserves but was not referred to as such.
32
Marie Elliott, “Girl Reserve Club Report, November 15–March 15, 1921,” YWCA Oahu
Archives.
33
Grace Stockwell, “Club Report, January 15–February 15, 1921,” YWCA Oahu Archives.
34“Our Objective—Girls!,” The Friend, March 1921; Alice Moore, “Club Report,
November 15–December 15, 1920,” YWCA Oahu Archives.
35
Catherine S. Vance, The Girl Reserve Movement of the YWCA (New York: Bureau of
Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1937), 74.
36
Alice Moore, “Club Report, 1920,” YWCA Oahu Archives.
37
Girl Reserve Movement, 295.
38
Girl Reserve Department, “Annual Report, 1930,” YWCA Oahu Archives.
39
Girl Reserve Department, “Annual Report, 1931,” YWCA Oahu Archives.
40
Anne Soon Choi, “‘Hawaii Has Been My America’: Generation, Gender, and Korean
Immigrant Experience in Hawaii Before World War II,” American Studies 45, no. 3, (2004):
141–44.
41
Girl Reserve Rural Work, “Annual Report, 1932,” YWCA Oahu Archives.
42
Gertrude Gogin, “Report to the City Committee,” 1919.
43
Mary Frederickson, “Citizens for Democracy: The Industrial Programs of the YWCA,” in
Joyce L. Kornbluh and Mary Frederickson, eds., Sisterhood and Solidarity: Workers’
Education for Women, 1914–1984 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1984), 78.
44
Mary S. Sims, The YWCA: An Unfolding Purpose (New York: Woman’s Press, 1950), 78.
45
Grace H. Wilson, The Religious and Educational Philosophy of the Young Women’s
Christian Association (New York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia

FORGING AMERICAN WOMANHOOD

85

University, 1933), 86.
46
Boyd, Emissaries, 78–79.
47“Minutes of the Board of Directors,” February 17, 1920, YWCA Oahu Archives.
48
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, February 5, 1916.
49
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, April 15, 1916.
50
Grace Potter, “YWCA Club Report, February 1920,” YWCA Oahu Archives.
51
Grace Potter, “YWCA Club Report, April 1920,” YWCA Oahu Archives.
52
The Friend, March 1921.
53
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, February 9, 1924.
54“Annual Reports of the Honolulu YWCA,” 1930, 1931, 1932, YWCA Oahu Archives.
55
Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900, 258–59.
56
Sheila Rothman quoted in the introduction to Elizabeth Wilson, Fifty Years of Association
Work among Young Women (1917; repr., Farmingdale, NY: Dabor Social Science
Publications, 1978).
57
Lynn Y. Weiner, From Working Girl to Working Mother: The Female Labor Force in the
United States, 1820–1980 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985), 64.
58
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, January 19, 1935.
59
Ibid.
60
Jane Dranga, “Racial Factors in the Employment of Women,” Social Process in Hawaii 2(1936): 12.
61
Honolulu Advertiser, January 29, 1938; “Minutes of the Annual Meeting,” January 28,
1938.
62
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, May 29, 1938.
63
Arthur Power Dudden, The American Pacific: From the Old China Trade to the Present(New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 69.