The Moral and Religious Forces of Seattle

• Other Authors: University of Washington Libraries. Special Collections Division.
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: unknown
• Published: R. L. Davis Printing Co.
• Subjects: Seattle (Wash.) > Moral conditions; Seattle (Wash.) > Religious life and customs; Social service > Washington (State) > Seattle; Pacific; Yukon; Alaska
• Online Access: http://cdm16786.contentdm.oclc.org:80/cdm/ref/collection/pioneerlife/id/8501

This brochure advertises the 1911 "Know Your City" civic institute for Seattle, which was held from May 8th through May 18th. The year's theme was "A Survey of the Moral and Religious Forces of Seattle, Especially in Their Social and Civic Aspect". Meetings were held in the Y.M.C.A. building, and admission was free to all. The opening address was given by W. J. Hindley, the Mayor of Spokane, whose speech was entitled "The Social and Civic Aspects of Religion". The subsequent daily themes of the institute were "The Religious Forces of the City", "Work for the Neglected", "The Church in Charities and Philanthropies", "Religion's Help in Civic Problems", "Religious Education in the City", "Forces That Make for an Unrighteous City", "Religion and the Labor Problem", "Religious Reconstruction to Meet the Needs of our Times", and "Forces Co-operant Toward a Better City". Two essay prize competitions were held, on the topics of "The Place of Religion in the Life of the City" and "A Plan for the Unification of the Religious Forces of Seattle", for which the winners were to receive $10 and the opportunity to read the winning essay publicly as a part of the institute's program. Sydney Strong is identified as the Chairman of the General Committee for the institute, and J. Edgar Williams is listed as the Secretary and Treasurer. The "Know-Your-City" movement began in 1909 when Anna Louise Strong, a resident of Seattle, visited the Schools of Civics and Philanthropy in New York and Chicago. She resolved to adapt their concept of the "summer institute" for the city of Seattle, making the classes open to all citizens (not limited to tuition-paying students, as in the cities she'd visited), and worked with her father, Sydney Strong, to plan the first institute for May, 1909, immediately before the opening of the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition. The Strongs secured the support of many prominent citizens and local newspapers in the creation of the institute. Its success led to the organization of similar conferences in other cities around the Pacific Northwest, including a "Know Your City" institute in Portland, Oregon in November of 1909, as well as leading the Strongs to continue organizing Seattle's "Know Your City" institutes on an annual basis for several years thereafter.