Ballington & Maud Ballington Booth

Founded Volunteers of America in 1896 with the mission to reach and uplift all people. The Booths envisioned a movement that would care for the whole person- mind, body, and spirit. Their vision lives on in a national organization that provides services to help children, the elderly, people with disabilities, the homeless, and others in need.

"Our work is not all bread and shelter. The underprivileged, the weak and the unfortunate need more. They need sympathy, the warmth of fellowship, and the instilling of courage."

— Ballington Booth

Ballington Booth
Born: July 28, 1857, Brighouse, England
Died: October 5, 1940, Brightwaters, New York

Maud Ballington Booth
Born: September 13, 1865, Limpsfield, Surrey, England
Died: August 26, 1948, Long Island, New York

Though British subjects by birth, Ballington and Maud Booth became American citizens by choice and devoted their life to helping others. In 1896, they co-founded the Volunteers of America, an organization which would become their legacy to their adopted country. For over 100 years, Volunteers of America has pursued its mission of reaching and uplifting the American people. Today, it assists more than 1.4 million people annually, by designing and operating a realm of innovative programs that address America's most pressing social problems.

Ballington Booth was the second of eight children born to Methodist minister William Booth and his wife, Catherine Mumford Booth. From birth, Ballington was devoted to a life of religious work and service to his fellow man. When Booth was eight years old, his father founded the Salvation Army in London. His experience in watching this organization grow embued in him a sense of man's obligation to others. His entire upbringing was aimed at preparing him for a life of religious work and serving in the ranks of this new form of Christianity.

William Booth determined very early that his young son would grow to serve and lead in the evangelical mission he founded in 1865, and he trained Ballington in the ways of this "new religion." After secondary school, the young Ballington Booth studied at the Nottingham Theological Seminary. However his mother, believing that higher education caused young people to rebel against the church, forced him to return home.

Booth began preaching to awestruck crowds on street corners during his teens for his father's Salvation Army open-air meetings. His imposing 6 foot 4 inch frame, compelling voice and musical abilities appealed to all audiences. Frequently, after preaching on the corner, he would end the session by bringing out his concertina and playing for the crowd.

At 23 he attained the rank of Colonel and was placed in charge of the Salvation Army officer training programs. When the organization expanded he was placed in charge of the movement in Australia.

In 1886, he toured parts of the United States and Canada, preaching along the way. Later that year he married Maud Charlesworth and in 1887 his father, General Booth, assigned the couple to America in an effort to reorganize and strengthen its division in America. They newlyweds did not anticipate that in less than a decade, they would grow to love their adopted country so much that they would become U.S. citizens and eventually leave the Salvation Army to start their own mission "for God and Country."

Maud Ballington Booth was born Maud Charlesworth, the youngest daughter of a prominent barrister who gave up the law to become an Anglican priest. During her preparation for religious confirmation, she accompanied her mother to a Salvation Army Holiness Meeting, and heard a compelling young man, Ballington Booth, speak for the first time. His passionate speech about serving and saving the impoverished masses deeply stirred the idealistic young school girl. They would marry when she reached the age of 21 and almost immediately set sail for the United States.

Despite, or perhaps because of her small stature, Maud Booth too became a compelling speaker, and spent the voyage evangelizing her fellow passengers. One of the first class passengers, Chauncey Depew, chairman of the New York Central Railroad, heard her and invited her to the first class salon to discuss her mission and work. The relationship lasted for decades to come and Mr. Depew provided enormous amounts of support to the Booth's mission.

Upon arriving in New York, the Booths set about reorganizing and re- energizing the American Salvation Army, making it one of the most organized and fiscally sound units of the organization. But, a disagreement between Ballington Booth and his father, General William Booth, over the "Americanization" of the Salvation Army would lead to the resignation of Ballington and Maud Booth of their commissions in the Salvation Army.

Removed from their posts, but unable to turn their backs on their adopted country, Ballington and Maud Booth announced that they would start a new organization. With the backing of several influential politicians and religious figures, "God's American Volunteers" made its debut on March 8, 1896, but it quickly became known as the Volunteers of America. The mission was to "go wherever it was needed and do whatever work came to hand".

Ballington was the General of the Volunteers and responsible for the daily management of the organization. Both Booths kept up non-stop speaking schedules, criss-crossing the country and lining up supporters and volunteers for their new organization. They counted among their friends names such as Astor, Baruch, Vanderbilit and Wannamaker. Ballington Booth shared the speaking stage with Williams Jennings Bryan and counseled Woodrow Wilson on the social impact of the World War. He met with Franklin Roosevelt on private charity efforts during the Depression and was a Masonic lodge brother with Warren G. Harding.

Within six months, 140 posts had been established with 400 commanding officers, 50 staff officers, three regiments and ten battalions. From the outset, Volunteers of America did not set itself up as a rival of any other organization, particularly the Salvation Army, but instead went to those places where a need was not being met. As an example, in the first three months of 1898, the Volunteers Hotel in Chicago accommodated 43,841 lodgers and dispensed 49,273 meals. For ten cents, a man could secure a bath with hot and cold water, clean towel and soap, a supper of soup and bread, a bed for the night, a breakfast of bread and coffee and all the writing and reading material he wanted. During the Great Depression, Volunteers of America mobilized resources to assist millions of unemployed, hungry and homeless. Relief efforts included employment bureaus, wood yards, soup kitchens, and "Penny Pantries," where every food item cost a penny. During World War I and World War II, Volunteers of America provided a myriad of services on the home front. It operated canteens, provided overnight lodgings and Sunday breakfasts for soldiers and sailors on leave. Volunteers of America also provided affordable housing and child care for defense industry workers. During World War II, it organized community salvage drives which collected millions of pounds of scrap metal, rubber and fiber for the war effort.

Volunteers of America also assisted communities struck by domestic disasters. Following the San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906, it set up a special train to take orphaned children to safety. Until the mid-1970s, Volunteers of America maintained a disaster relief unit when it was disbanded rather than duplicate efforts of other organizations like the American Red Cross. Volunteers of America still provides a helping hand in times of crises, as in 1993, when the agency provided family counseling services for the victims of Hurricane Andrew.

While Ballington Booth led most of the organization's activities, Maud Booth's energies were directed toward developing a distinct service niche. Early in 1896, Maud Booth received a letter from an inmate in New York's Sing Sing Prison asking her to help his wife, who was destitute while he was serving his sentence. On the outside of the envelope, the warden had penned his own message, and invited Maud Booth to speak to inmates in the prison chapel. Following that speaking engagement, five of the men came forward, determined to reform their lives. These five prisoners were the beginning of the Volunteer Prison League which was formed on Christmas Eve, 1896.

Until her death 52 years later, Maud Booth worked tirelessly on behalf of "her boys". Within a year after her speech at Sing Sing, the Volunteer Prison League was organized in seven more state prisons, including San Quentin, and the roll book contained more than 1,200 names. By 1923, over 100,000 men had been enrolled in 46 state and federal prisons. Of those Volunteer Prison League members who were released, nearly 80% never returned to prison life. Their motto was "Look Up and Hope."

The Volunteer Prison League made a difference on both sides of the prison walls. Prison wardens saw a difference in inmates who became members of the Volunteer Prison League and who had dedicated their lives to doing right, including a complete turnaround in some of the most hardened criminals.

Borrowing on the group motto, Maud Booth was instrumental in setting up the first halfway houses, known as "Hope Halls". Upon their prison release, ex-convicts could go to one of the numerous Hope Halls set up around the country. These facilities provided a welcome home for men and allowed them a place to stay, free of charge. In addition to providing housing, Hope Halls assisted released prisoners in securing jobs. Maud Booth even hired several of these men to work in her private home and in the offices of the Volunteers of America.

The effect of Maud Booth's travel and public addresses focused attention on prison conditions and problems as no one else had been able to do. She was the greatest single influence in securing political support for prison reforms long sought by the American Prison Association, and was instrumental in the setting up the parole system. Her work continues to this day in the hundreds of halfway houses and special facilities for incarcerated Americans run by Volunteers of America and other agencies.

The Volunteer Prison League was only one part of the Volunteers of America and, although it was Maud Booth's personal mission, she also participated in all other aspects of the Volunteer activities and engagements. During World War I, she traveled to France to visit the troops for the YMCA. She became a founding member of the national Parent Teacher Association. She was an active supporter of the women's suffrage movement and she succeeded her husband as General of the Volunteers of America following his death in 1940.

Both Ballington and Maud Booth succeeded beyond anyone's dreams in their quest to help others. They turned around a public hostile to the idea of street corner preachers, built the organization's membership, and kept it on sound financial footing. Under Ballington Booth's leadership, Volunteers of America added social service programs such as day nurseries, food pantries and affordable lodgings for working men and women. The organization flourished as those in need found refuge and strength in the institutions.

Ballington Booth's 43 years of leadership laid the foundation for Volunteers of America to provide affordable housing, medical care, and community services to needy Americans. Today, the Volunteers of America is the largest nonprofit provider of affordable housing for the elderly, low income families and those with mental or physical disabilities and it continues Maud Booth's legacy of rehabilitating ex-offenders, and the traditions of Hope Halls with half-way houses, restitution centers, and alternative sentencing programs for both men and women.


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