Ethos and Politics in the Youth Hostels Association (YHA) in the 1930s

Abstract

The Youth Hostels Association (YHA) was a formally non-political\ud organization founded to provide cheap accommodation for walkers\ud and cyclists. However, the YHA drew on, and was influenced by, values\ud and ideas which both attracted a particular kind of member and\ud informed its domestic political interventions. The article specifically\ud examines the connections between the YHA and other organizations,\ud aspects of the politics of membership relating to the concepts of\ud respectability and class and the political interventions of the YHA in\ud the areas of unemployment and the access movement

“Two Wheels Bad”?

“…This was manifested in the importance of the physical space of the Common Room which all hostels had and which drew upon the same space in Educational Settlements; both this movement of adult education and the YHA being heavily influenced by Quakerism. 16 In his 1950 history of the movement, Coburn described the Common Room thus: "this is the environment in which all classes and types can mingle successfully, the son of an employer with the son of an employee, the labourer and the clerk, the countryman and the townsman, the shy (now emboldened) and the hearty, the young and the old." 17 If this inclusiveness and egalitarianism was to be respected, it would preclude a pejorative view of cycling or cyclists.…”

Review of periodical literature on the history of education published in 2016

“…Formed in the 1930s, the YHA was ostensibly a nonpolitical organisation, yet, as Michael Cunningham argues, its desire to foster healthy recreation and help young people access the countryside took place within certain ideological and cultural assumptions linked to concepts of simplicity, service and improvement. 106…”