Monroe and Isabel Smith
American youth advocates
Monroe William Smith and his wife Isabel Bacheler Smith founded American Youth Hostels in 1934. Monroe was a former Boy Scout executive and Isabel an art teacher when the young couple founded the hostels in Northfield, Massachusetts. Monroe also founded Youth Argosy, an organization intended to "provide travel opportunities for worthy young people of slender means" and resigned his directorship of American Youth Hostels in 1949. After a promising start, Youth Argosy went bankrupt in 1951, largely due to a new Civil Aeronautics Board regulation aimed at small charter groups.
Early life
Monroe was born on January 22, 1901, to Carlos William Smith and Mertie May Loomis, in Sunderland, Massachusetts, and died on December 8, 1972, in Delray Beach, Florida. Isabel was born on December 12, 1898, to Francis Peck Bachelor and Rebecca Hope Fuller, in Hartford, Connecticut, and died on May 3, 1985, in Boulder, Colorado. On June 23, 1929, Monroe and Isabel were married in Vernon, Connecticut. They had three children.
Isabel attended Norwich Free Academy and pursued her studies in art until her graduation in 1917. Shortly after, she moved in with her cousin, George Inness Jr.
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