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During the Great Depression, Herbert Taylor, president of the Club Aluminum Company, and his wife Gloria provided bread and soup for long lines of people at a small storefront mission on the near north side of Chicago. As part of their ministry to the community, they surveyed 2000 homes in the neighborhood and discovered that 50 percent of the children never attended church services or Sunday school.

"This simply can't continue!" the couple concluded. Using stock from Herb's aluminum company to create the non-profit Christian Workers Foundation, the Taylors determined to help finance organizations capable of reaching the unchurched young people of America.

What began in a storefront mission came to focus on the world. War clouds were building over Europe, and America's evangelical Christianity had to change. Among the ministries encouraged by the Taylors was Youth for Christ, a vibrantly attractive movement among Christian youth during and just after World War II, and a training ground for new evangelical leaders. The movement had no founder; it had an explosion—driven by a deep concern for America's youth and future. YFC began in the hearts of people like Herb and Gloria Taylor who sensed that a new day had come to America, an hour of need.

Probably the first youth rally director in America was fiery Lloyd Bryant, who organized weekly rallies for youth in the heart of Manhattan during the early 1930s. The youth rally became nationally known, however, when a converted insurance salesman and dance band trombonist named Jack Wyrtzen launched a radio broadcast in Manhattan. He called it "Word of Life Hour" and then linked it with rallies held at Bryant's old meeting place, the Christian and Mission Alliance Tabernacle in the heart of New York City. The first rally came on October 25, 1941. Then came the war and the huge rallies.

Word of Life moved to Carnegie Hall but soon outgrew it too. Several rallies, beginning in 1944, drew more than 20,000 to Madison Square Garden, and radio soon carried the revival spirit across the land to Detroit, Washington, D.C., Indianapolis, St. Louis, Minneapolis, and a thousand smaller towns in between.

Radio may be key to understanding the movement, according to historian Joel Carpenter. Torrey Johnson and Bob Cook, two young pastors in the Chicago area, sensed that radio broadcasts of the rallies had immense symbolic and practical value. Not only was radio good for publicity and extended impact, but it also added to the legitimacy of the event. It made the audience feel they were "part of something big, and alive, and vital." This striving for an image of significance and eventfulness, says Carpenter, prompted rally directors to emulate radio celebrities. Jack Wyrtzen and later Billy Graham clearly patterned their preaching after the clipped, rapid-fire urgency of radio newscasters.

George Beverly Shea—later widely known as the bass soloist of the Billy Graham team—was on the staff of the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. Shea and a few friends decided it was time their city had a rally too. Shea had worked with Jack Wyrtzen in New York City and now urged Torrey Johnson, pastor of the Midwest Bible Church, to take the leadership of a Chicago rally. After some hesitation, Johnson agreed to organize the event and, surprisingly, secured prestigious Orchestra Hall for 21 Saturday nights in the summer of 1944. For the first night's preacher he turned to a young, neighboring pastor: Billy Graham. Huge crowds came, and media types took note.

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