From international to national engagement and back: The YWCA’s communicative techniques of americanisation in the aftermath of world war I

In the United States and across the globe, World War I intensified anxieties about the relationship between cultural diversity and national identity. In that context, the Americanisation programmes of the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) bridged the organisation’s international experiences with its domestic agenda of service work. This article recovers the YWCA’s woman-centric methods for facilitating communication and civic engagement among diverse groups of immigrants in the USA; it draws attention to the YWCA’s insights into the relationship between gender, culture and democratic life; and it highlights the practical utility, theoretical insight and ethical implications of the YWCA’s techniques for contemporary peace building and international work.