Ralph C. Smedley was born February 22, 1878, at Waverly, Illinois, about twenty miles southwest of Springfield.  Upon finishing high school he taught in country schools in the area before enrolling at Illinois Wesleyan University at Bloomington, Illinois, where he graduated in 1903.  His first full time job after college was in YMCA work at Peoria, Illinois, and soon he was employed as the Educational Director of the new YMCA at Bloomington, Illinois. 

He always had an interest in making speeches and conducting meetings. As Educational Director of the "Y" he worked with the boys and young men of the Association in special interest groups and clubs.  He soon discovered there was a need for training in speech.  The General Secretary of the "Y", George Sutton, agreed to a boys club to practice short speeches, debates and work in chairmanship.  A name was needed and George Sutton suggested calling it a Toastmasters club.  The boys liked the name and the club was a success. 

There was a rotation of duties with members taking turns at presiding and speaking.  Short speeches were evaluated by Ralph and the other older men, and the boys were invited to join in the evaluation to learn more.  The club performed its intended purpose as leadership and speech improved in the other educational groups with which these young men were associated.

In May 1906 Ralph C. Smedley became General Secretary of the YMCA at Freeport, Illinois.  Adult education was started at this "Y" in the fall of 1906 with night school work in various practical lines.  The need for speech and chairmanship training immediately was evident, and Ralph C. Smedley proposed to the Board of Directors that a Toastmasters club for boys be established at Freeport.  The Board liked the idea but objected to having it for boys so the Freeport Toastmasters Club for Men came into being in March 1907.  They followed the principles of learning by doing and improving through evaluation.  The group included the leaders of the city and business and professional men so they did not need outside teachers and they did their own evaluating with excellent results.  The club was strong and popular, but it only lasted a year after Ralph Smedley moved to the YMCA at Rock Island, Illinois, as General Secretary in 1910. 

He quickly organized a Toastmasters Club at the Rock Island "Y" which soon reached a membership of 75.  When Ralph Smedley left the Rock Island "Y" the Toastmasters Club soon perished.

After he spent over two years with an architect working on YMCA architecture he accepted the post of YMCA Secretary at San Jose, California, in September 1919, and soon had a Toastmasters Club flourishing at his new YMCA.  Again the club lasted only a short time after Ralph C. Smedley moved to Santa Ana, California, in 1922. 

His primary task at Santa Ana was to build a home for the new YMCA so it was not until September, 1924, that he introduced the Toastmasters Club idea and the first meeting was held at the YMCA Building on October 22, 1924.  We measure Toastmasters history from that date.

A club was immediately organized and still exists as Club No. 1 of Toastmasters International.  Until now the Toastmasters Club was an educational arm of the YMCA but this was to change.  In the autumn of 1925 J. Clark Chamberlain of Anaheim, California, visited the Toastmasters Club and the following winter Ralph C. Smedley helped a group in Anaheim to form a Toastmasters Club.  It still exists and has charter No. 2 from Toastmasters International.  The Toastmasters Club idea spread to Los Angeles, Long Beach and other southern California cities.  Representatives of these clubs met and organized an association.  In order to save the time consumed in replying to many letters and inquiries Ralph prepared a "Manual of Instructions" and "Ten Lessons In Public Speaking" which he mimeographed and bound in paper covers.  On October 25, 1928, Ralph C. Smedley obtained copyrights on his publications and copyrighted the name Toastmasters Club all of which he later assigned to Toastmasters International.

The new association needed a name and because of one club in British Columbia, Canada, they chose to call it Toastmasters International.  There were about 30 clubs when the association was formed in 1930 and in 1932 Toastmasters International was incorporated as a California Non-profit corporation.  In another section I record the growth of Toastmasters International.  The Toastmasters Club was the brain child of Dr. Ralph C. Smedley and we honor him as our Founder.

In addition to his time consuming job as Secretary of the YMCA, Ralph was the Secretary and Bulletin Editor of the Santa Ana Rotary Club and now undertook the dual role of Editor and Secretary of the new Toastmasters International.  In 1936 Ralph published his first article to give special recognition to General Henry Martyn Robert the author of Robert's Rules of Order.  His interest in General Robert continued for the rest of Ralph's life and culminated in the book "The Great Peacemaker" by Dr. Ralph C. Smedley published in 1955.  Among Toastmasters he will always be remembered for "Basic Training". 

Dr. Smedley recalls the problem and the solution in "The Story of Toastmasters" 1959 page 39, "It came as a result of many demands for some kind of guide for the new member ..... I was then, as always, opposed to the use of any 'course' in public speaking for our clubs, but under pressure I bowed to the inevitable...This publication met with good reception... It has been used by a number colleges and universities as a textbook for beginners in speech... The sales of the book outside our organization have contributed a considerable amount to our income."

Later in 1950 Dr. Smedley yielded to the pressure and wrote "Beyond Basis Training" which two works served after Dr. Smedley's death.  As Toastmasters grew his work load became heavier and at an age when most men consider retirement he resigned as YMCA Secretary in 1941 to devote more time to Toastmasters International.  Through the war years he operated out of a small office and kept the organization together for its destiny.  When the war was over it was time to turn the reigns over to a new Secretary, Ted Blanding, but Ralph was to remain active as Educational Director for the rest of his life and a permanent member of the Board of Directors.  In 1950 Illinois Wesleyan University recognized his service to mankind by conferring the degree of L.H.D. -- Litterarum Humaniorum or Doctor of Humane Letters.   He would be Dr. Ralph C. Smedley to the hundreds of thousands of men who benefited from Toastmaster training in all those years.

In the summer of 1964 Ralph's health began to decline and by the next summer he was confined to a medical facility and died September 11, 1965.  The memory of our Founder and the self-help idea he started for the benefit of all who would accept it will hold his name in the highest honor as long as Toastmaster Clubs continue.

Americans firmly believe that it's possible to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Self-improvement -- be it in the form of a face lift, motivational seminar, morning jog, or new low-cholesterol diet regimen -- is our ticket to Valhalla.

It's not too surprising, then, to find Toastmasters International, the world's premier self-improvement club, in Orange County, where sheep ranches blossom into million-dollar corporations and swap meets spawn national clothing chains. What is surprising is that the club -- which dedicates itself to improving leadership skills, self-confidence and communication through public speaking -- originated in Orange County 75 years ago.

Toastmasters was the brainchild of a Midwesterner named Ralph C. Smedley. In 1903, after graduating from Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Illinois, Smedley took a job as director of education for the local Young Men's Christian Association. Realizing that the older boys who visited the YMCA needed training in communication, he began a public speaking club.

Smedley called his group, "The Toastmasters Club" because the activities resembled a banquet with toasts and after-dinner speakers. The boys enjoyed taking turns making speeches and evaluating them, as well as presiding at the weekly meetings. Smedley's club blossomed, but soon he was promoted to general secretary of the YMCA and transferred to Freeport, Illinois. After his departure, the Bloomington club died.

In the following years, Smedley organized other Toastmasters clubs wherever he was transferred. In Freeport, businessmen and other professionals who recognized the benefits of communications skills became members. Yet these older members did not save the organization either. The club operated successfully while Smedley was there but disappeared when its founder moved on to Rock Island, Illinois. Subsequent clubs in Rock Island and San Jose, California, suffered the same fate.

Smedley must have despaired of ever seeing his creation blossom into a self-sustaining organization. "I observed a tendency among my fellow secretaries at the YMCA to regard The Toastmasters Club as a sort of peculiarity -- an idiosyncrasy of mine," he later said. "Perhaps it was not altogether orthodox as a 'Y' activity."

A New Beginning in Santa Ana

Finally, the YMCA director arrived in Santa Ana. Once more he organized a Toastmasters club, holding the first meeting in the Santa Ana YMCA basement on October 22, 1924. In Southern California's optimistic climate, the concept caught on. Men from neighboring communities sought out the group and liked what they saw. Smedley was quick to help them organize their own Toastmasters clubs. The new clubs were united in a federation designed to coordinate their activities and ensure uniform methods.

In 1932, the federation was incorporated as Toastmasters International, following the establishment of a club in New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada. Districts were created later, as the number of clubs increased.

For many years, Smedley held the position of general secretary of the Santa Ana YMCA, handling finances, fund raising, program planning, membership matters and the supervision of a number of YMCA employees. In addition, he served as liaison for the local and national YMCA organizations.

Somehow Smedley managed to find time to spread the gospel about Toastmasters, serving as its executive secretary and editor of The Toastmaster magazine, while also maintaining his busy YMCA schedule. He corresponded regularly with members and club officers, encouraging and guiding them in club matters.

By 1941, Smedley realized that Toastmasters needed his full-time attention. He resigned from the YMCA and opened a 12-by-16-foot office in a downtown Santa Ana bank, with a desk, typewriter, telephone and second-hand address machine. He hired a secretary to handle the correspondence while he wrote materials for the club's use.

The organization began with two manuals -- Basic Training and Beyond Basic Training -- written by Smedley in the office after business hours. He also found time to write several tomes on public speaking and parliamentary procedure. The Voice of the Speaker, Speech Evaluation and The Amateur Chairman found a ready audience in Toastmaster members. (Smedley also wrote The Great Peacemaker, a biography of Henry M. Robert, author of the famed Robert's Rules of Order.)

Toastmasters continued to grow. The single-room office expanded to four, and past international president Ted Blanding took over the position of executive secretary, while Smedley became educational director and concentrated on learning processes and materials.

Smedley was involved in the educational program of Toastmasters International until shortly before his death in 1965 at the age of 87.

Toastmasters has continued to flourish. In 1962, Toastmasters -- by then an organization of 80,000 members and 3,500 clubs -- built its own 27,000-square-foot office building in Santa Ana. Smedley took part in the dedication ceremonies. A second growth spurt came following the decision to accept women as members in 1973.

By 1985, the Santa Ana building was serving 120,000 members and 5,300 clubs worldwide. Expansion and remodeling were necessary to provide 5,000 additional square feet of warehouse space. But within four years, the organization had outgrown the headquarters. In June 1990, Toastmasters International moved into a new world headquarters in Rancho Santa Margarita.

Today, more than 170,000 members take part in 8,300 clubs in the United States, Canada and 67 other countries. Thousands of corporations and government agencies, including Rockwell International in Downey and Irvine's Fluor Daniel, sponsor in house Toastmasters clubs as communication training for their employees. Specialized clubs meet at military bases, colleges and universities, churches and prisons. There are Toastmasters clubs for senior citizens, professional groups, bilingual groups, singles and visually impaired.

Ralph Smedley's contributions to society have not gone unnoticed. In 1950, Wesleyan University granted him the honorary degree of doctor of humane letters, and Santa Ana named a junior high school after him in 1955. In 1956, Toastmasters itself honored him with the title of honorary president and lifetime board member. The Santa Ana Toastmasters Club even renamed itself the Smedley Number One Club in honor of its founder.

But perhaps the best tribute is one that takes place at every meeting of the Smedley Number One Club: A photograph of Smedley and the original club charter are placed in an empty chair near the lectern to represent his continuing inspiration.