George Williams College - Embers Yearbook (Chicago, IL)

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C9218 george !1fM.f!!l.ClI7lS K 00177, Soon after the college moved into the present building in 1915, J. Sidney Hotton, its business manager, conceived the idea of a George Williams room. On the second floor of the London drapery house of Hitchcock and Williams he found the room wherein George Williams and his fellow dry goods clerks started the YMCA on June 6, 1844. Careful architect drawings and the im- portation of the fireplace, tables, and chairs, all exact copies of the originals fone chair is an original, made possible the building and furnishing of a room that resembles the original down to the unlevelness of the floor and the asymmetry of its panels. This room was dedicated with appropriate ceremony on October ll, 1921, the hundredth anniversary of George Williams' birth. The original room was destroyed in the London blitz. A second copy located in the Jesus tower of the Jerusalem YMCA is a less accurate facsimile. After closing the heavy panelled door behind him and seated, perhaps, in George Williams original chair, many a student has in meditation here relived the scenes that formed the thoughts and convictions of the young men, who pio- neered the greatest movement of men and women organized to be helpful to each other in service to their highest ideals. And the intimacy of this unique shrine, with its many authentic records, has somehow made it just a bit easier for each of them to resolve to do likewise. Arthur H. Steinhaus