Eva del Vakia Bowles

Eva del Vakia Bowles was born on January 24, 1875, in Albany, Ohio to Mary Jane (née Porter) and John Hawkes Bowles. Her father was the first black principal of a school in Marietta, Ohio and 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 the 55th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment during the civil war.{{sfn|Bracks|Smith|2014|pp=26-27}} After attending public schools in Albany, Bowles went on to continue her education at Bliss Business College in Columbus while taking summer classes at Ohio State University.{{sfn|Jones|2000}}{{sfn|Robertson|2007|p=192}}{{sfn|The New York Age|1916|p=7}}

Bowles began her career as a teacher at several black colleges: Chandler Normal School in Lexington, Kentucky; St. Augustine's College of Raleigh, North Carolina, and St. Paul's School in Lawrenceville, Virginia.{{sfn|The New York Age|1943|p=1}}{{sfn|Robertson|2007|p=192}} In 1905, while she was teaching in Virginia, Bowles was approached by Addie Waites Hunton, whose husband William was secretary of the Colored Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) of Harlem. Hunton recruited Bowles to spearhead a project for the sister project, the YWCA association of New York, to address the needs of black women.{{sfn|Jones|2000}}{{sfn|Bracks|Smith|2014|pp=26-27}}{{sfn|The Kansas City Sun|1914|p=4}} When she took up the post, later that year, Bowles became the first black woman employed as a YWCA secretary in the United States.{{sfn|Jones|2000}}{{sfn|The New York Age|1916|p=1}} In 1908, she studied social work at Columbia University in the school of philanthropy.{{sfn|The New York Age|1943|p=1}}{{sfn|Jones|2000}}

After her studies, Bowles became a caseworker at the Associated Charities of Columbus, Ohio between 1908 and 1912.{{sfn|Commire|Klezmer|2007}} 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. During World 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.{{sfn|Jones|2000}} 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 president Theodore Roosevelt from his Nobel Prize funds.{{sfn|The New York Age|1918|p=1}}

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.{{sfn|Jones|2000}} She traveled the country opening YWCA branches and also pressed for the organization to expand their work in Africa and the Caribbean.{{sfn|The New York Age|1943|p=1}}{{sfn|Jones|2000}} In 1932, she resigned from the YWCA, having become disillusioned with their reorganization plans.{{sfn|Jones|2000}}{{sfn|The New York Age|April 30, 1932|p=1}} 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.{{sfn|The New York Age|April 30, 1932|p=1}}{{sfn|The New York Age|June 11, 1932|p=1}} In 1943, at the onset of World War II, Bowles was named executive director of Civilian Defense for the Harlem and Riverside areas of New York City.{{sfn|The New York Age|January 16, 1943|p=4}}

Bowles died June 14, 1943, at the Richmond Community Hospital in Richmond, Virginia, while on a visit to see her niece.{{sfn|The New York Age|1943|p=1}} 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.{{sfn|Jones|2000}}

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• {{cite web|ref={{harvid|Jones|2000}}|title=Eva Del Vakia Bowles|url=http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=h-us1918-45&month=0202&week=d&user=&pw=|website=Humanities & Social Sciences Online|publisher=Michigan State University|access-date=2 February 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170202214415/http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=h-us1918-45&month=0202&week=d&msg=LuuvdB9S9VFNmM5PhggOpw&user=&pw=|archive-date=2 February 2017|location=East Lansing, Michigan|date=28 Feb 2002|postscript=. republished from Jones, Adrienne Lash. (February 2000) "Bowles, Eva Del Vakia" American National Biography Online Oxford, England: for the American Council of Learned Societies by Oxford University Press.}}
• {{cite book|last=Robertson|first=Nancy Marie|title=Christian Sisterhood, Race Relations, and the YWCA, 1906-46|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SLOOBwFeMxsC&pg=PA192|year=2007|publisher=University of Illinois Press|location=Urbana, Illinois|isbn=978-0-252-03193-9}}
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• {{cite news|ref={{harvid|The New York Age|1918}}|author=|title=$400,000 to Be Spent for Work among Colored Girls|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/8715175/the_new_york_age/|access-date=2 February 2017|newspaper=The New York Age|date=September 28, 1918|location=New York City, New York|page=1|via = Newspapers.com}} {{open access}}
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• {{cite news|ref={{harvid|The New York Age|June 11, 1932}}|author=|title=Miss Eva D. Bowles Inducted into Office as Full-Time Worker for C.M.A. Stores and Business League|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/8713553/the_new_york_age/|access-date=2 February 2017|newspaper=The New York Age|date=June 11, 1932|location=New York City, New York|page=1|via = Newspapers.com}} {{open access}}
• {{cite news|ref={{harvid|The New York Age|1943}}|author=|title=Miss Eva D. Bowles, Pioneer Y Worker, Dies in Richmond|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/8713741/the_new_york_age/|access-date=2 February 2017|newspaper=The New York Age|date=June 19, 1943|location=New York City, New York|page=1|via = Newspapers.com}} {{open access}}
• {{cite news|ref={{harvid|The Kansas City Sun|1914}}|author=|title=Y.W.C.A. Notes|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/8715540/ywca_notes_the_kansas_city_sun/|access-date=2 February 2017|publisher=The Kansas City Sun|date=April 11, 1914|location=Kansas City, Missouri|page=4|via = Newspapers.com}} {{open access}}

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Category:1875 births

Category:1943 deaths

Category:People from Albany, Ohio

Category:African-American activists

Category:African-American women educators

Category:American social workers

Category:YWCA leaders

Category:20th-century American philanthropists

Category:20th-century American Episcopalians

Category:Educators from Ohio

Category:20th-century American educators

Category:20th-century American women educators

Category:20th-century African-American educators

Category:20th-century African-American women