Jenny, Arnold Eugene

Dates

• Existence: 1895 - 1977

Biography

Arnold Eugene Jenny was born in Switzerland in 1895 and educated in New York City. He became a U.S. citizen in 1911. For many years Jenny was director of World Y Tours, operated by the International Committee of the YMCAs of the United States and Canada as a pioneer project for the promotion of better international understanding and friendship. His professional and personal travels took him to 45 countries on five continents.

During a year in Siberia during the Russian Revolution as YMCA representative with the American Expeditionary Forces, he developed a lifelong interest in photography. Well after retirement, he gave illustrated lectures about his travels to a wide variety of audiences.

During World War II, in a secret meeting at the Dresden YMCA, Jenny met a young pre-medical student named Hans Mueller with whom he would later correspond regarding a scholarship in honor of the Nobel Prize-winning German writer Thomas Mann. That correspondence led to an exchange with Mann, and the collection contains photocopies of some of those letters. Following World War II he worked with displaced persons in Germany.

After his retirement to the Rogue Valley in 1960, Jenny began editing a poetry column in the Medford Mail Tribune. “Poet’s Corner” debuted in 1961 and continued until 1975.

His love of travel and photography prompted many visits to the area’s scenic and historic spots, and he developed illustrated lectures on local attractions such as Crater Lake, the Rogue River, and Lava Beds National Monument in addition to his talks on international sites.

Jenny died in Medford in 1977.

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