The Association of Junior Leagues International, Inc. (Junior League or JL) is a private, nonprofit educational women's volunteer organization aimed at improving communities and the social, cultural, and political fabric of civil society. With 298 Junior League chapters in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and the United Kingdom , it is one of the oldest and largest women's groups dedicated to improving society. Members engage in developing civic-leadership skills, fundraising, and volunteering on committees to support partner community organizations related to foster-children, ending domestic violence, fighting human trafficking, illiteracy, city beautification, and other issues. Its mission is to advance women's leadership for meaningful community impact through volunteer action, collaboration, and training.
It was founded in 1901 in New York City by Barnard College debutante Mary Harriman.
History
The first Junior League was founded in 1901 in New York City as the Junior League for the Promotion of the Settlement Movement. This original chapter is now known as the New York Junior League (NYJL). Its founder was then 19-year-old Barnard College student and debutante Mary Harriman Rumsey, sister of future Governor of New York, W. Averell Harriman, and daughter of railroad executive Edward H. Harriman.
Inspired by a lecture on settlement movements that chronicled the works of social reformers such as Lillian Wald and Jane Addams, Harriman Rumsey organized others to become involved in settlement work. The organization's first project was working at the College Settlement on Rivington Street on Manhattan's Lower East Side. These were the early days of privileged young girls and women leaving their sheltered lives in wealthy neighborhoods to volunteer their time with those who lived in crowded, poverty-stricken areas of cities. This started a legacy of volunteering and social activism that would continue for many decades.
For many years the NYJL's clubhouse was located at 221 East 71st Street in Manhattan. Designed by architect John Russell Pope and opened in 1929, the building contained a swimming pool on the top floor, bedrooms for volunteers, a ballroom, a hairdressing salon, and a shelter for up to 20 abandoned babies. Marymount Manhattan College currently owns the building. In 1950 the NYJL clubhouse moved to the former Vincent Astor townhouse (Astor House) at 130 East 80th Street, where it remains as of 2020.
The League quickly branched out and in 1907 became the Junior League for the Promotion of Neighborhood Work. Under President Dorothy Whitney, the League introduced formal training on "social problems" and expanded the scope of their work to include civic issues such as the civic role for women, police, and immigration (100 Years, 25–26). During this time, a number of sister leagues formed in cities including Brooklyn, New York and Portland, Oregon although there was no formal affiliation with the first New York league. A number of other debutante circles, like the Sewing Circle League of Boston began to emulate the League in New York and focus on local social issues (100 Years, 26). Eleanor Roosevelt was an early member of the NYJL, joining in 1903 when she was 19 years old.
In 1921, thirty Leagues joined to form a national association. Until this point, Leagues were only connected by a Bulletin, containing updates about various leagues, and an annual conference. The national association was named the Association of Junior Leagues of America, Inc. and acted as an umbrella organization (Volunteer, 61). A new Constitution was written, and the Board was tasked with acting as an information bureau for the leagues, as well as continuing to publish the Bulletin and coordinating the annual meeting (100 Years, 47.) After serving as New York City's Junior League president from 1907 to 1910, Dorothy Payne Whitney was nominated as the first president of AJLA. Despite the name, there was membership of Leagues located both in America and Canada at the time of the incorporation (100 Years, 61).
AJLA continued to expand in the number of Leagues and in programming. By the middle of the 20th century, there were over 150 Junior Leagues located in the United States, Canada, and Mexico (100 Years, 10). There was also a noticeable demographic shift in League members. More and more league members were young, working women or were older, suburban housewives as opposed to debutantes (100 Years, 94). In 1985, a Junior League was established in London which was the first League established outside of North America (100 Years, 154–155). This prompted a name change with the organization official becoming the Association of Junior Leagues International, Inc. (History Timeline).
Voluntarism The idea that women can meaningfully contribute to solving social issues and bettering communities through voluntarism has been a core tenet of the Junior League since its conception. In the Junior League’s 1906 Annual Report, Harriman Rumsey emphasized the organization’s imperative to alleviate civic ills: "It seems almost inhuman that we should live so close to suffering and poverty ... within a few blocks of our own home and bear no part in this great life" (100 Years, Introduction). This altruistic spirit inspired Harriman Rumsey to organize a group of 80 young women to volunteer for the College Settlement on Rivington Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Every week, League members would teach classes, hand out library books and engage in other enriching activities for children at the settlement house. Eleanor Roosevelt, who joined the Junior League in 1903 and served as League secretary in 1904, also taught dance and calisthenic classes at the Rivington Street Settlement House (100 Years, 21).
The Junior League House for Working Girls (Junior League Hotel) grew out of the organization’s early volunteer work with settlement movements. Dorothy Payne Whitney, president of the New York League from 1907 to 1909, and League members began to engage in conversations around how they might best support working women in the city. There was an interest in creating affordable, sanitary and comfortable accommodations solely for women – an alternative to tenement housing that would also protect against discrimination on the basis of nationality or religion. In 1909, the Junior League erected a six-story building on the corner of 78th street and East End Avenue, which would serve as the Junior League Hotel until its closure in 1931. At a rate of $4 to $7 a week, residents were provided a range of amenities including a library, roof garden, laundry, and tennis and basketball courts. The Junior League Hotel served as a model for Junior Leagues in other cities, many of which sponsored their own residential hotels and services for working women (100 Years, 21).
As Junior Leagues began to crop up in cities across the United States during the 1910s, the organization restated its mission with a focus on bolstering "an interest in all kinds of charitable and social effort" among its members, as well as supporting "already organized philanthropies" (100 Years, 27). This wide-ranging agenda would go on to encompass volunteering efforts around the country related to education, voting rights, child welfare and historic preservation, among other areas.
Education reform Over the early years of the League’s development, education emerged as a central aspect of the organization’s efforts to advance social causes. Through the School and Home Visitors program, the League sponsored teachers to assist with bolstering communication between schools and immigrant parents, and by 1909, the League was supplying schools with visiting teachers and volunteer tutors (100 Years, 23). School and Home Visitors, which began as a pilot project, was ultimately so successful that in 1910, New York state absorbed responsibility for the program and expanded its funding and reach. Nathalie Henderson, a League co-founder and chair of the organization’s Committee on Visiting Teachers of the Public Education Society, went on to chair New York’s joint Committee for Education and serve as a trustee at Teachers College, Columbia University (100 Years, 24).
When a League was organized in Brooklyn in 1910, the members petitioned the Board of Education to provide free lunches in public schools and transform vacant lots into playgrounds (100 Years, 26).
This advocacy work continued after World War II, when the Baby Boom created an additional need for resources to support schools, playgrounds, and teachers. With a shortage of teachers, League members volunteered in diagnostic programs and those for gifted and challenged children. By the mid-1950s, over 100 Leagues established public play areas for children (100 Years, 104).
In the 1980s, the Junior League participated in and led several campaigns for literacy. Along with other national organizations, the League joined in PLUS (Project Literacy US), a coordinated effort to expand literacy as a way of preventing against the spread of homelessness (100 Years, 140). Later that decade, First Ladies of the United States and Junior League members Barbara Bush and Laura Bush founded The Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy. The Foundation granted over $6 million to more than 200 Family Literacy Programs across the country in its first decade of operations. Laura Bush spearheaded an initiative in early childhood development to help infants and children get a leg up on reading before entering school (100 Years, 144).
Suffrage movement
In 1914, the St. Louis Junior League mobilized to support women’s suffrage. They staged a demonstration – what the St. Louis women referred to as a "walkless, talkless parade" - at the 1916 Democratic National Convention, which ultimately resulted in the Democrats voting to include a plank for women's suffrage. The St. Louis League expressed their support in various ways, including reforming the organization as The League of Women Voters, a new group (100 Years, 36).
One year after Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the Junior League held its annual conference in St. Louis. With discussions swirling around women’s suffrage at the conference, the League decided to form Legislative committees that would focus on "city or state laws, especially those affecting the social welfare of women and children" (100 Years, 37).
Child welfare
Junior Leagues have historically advanced causes related to the well-being of women and children in various ways. Leagues across the country pioneered these efforts. Tucson, Arizona established the city’s first day nursery, and Cincinnati established the Junior League Welfare Station, a clinic created to care for the children of indigent families (100 Years, 50). In 1917, members of the New York League organized the first network of volunteers in an outpatient department in New York City through the Children’s Clinic at Bellevue Hospital (100 Years, 38).
During the Great Depression, Junior Leagues ramped up efforts to care for infants, children and families in need. Junior Leagues established and operated milk stations and nurseries for the children of working women, and also ran soup kitchens (100 Years, 65). The Tampa Junior League supported and built out a tuberculosis clinic and treatment center known as the Pine Health Preventorium, through which it provided assistance to 150 children between 1933 and 1934 (100 Years, 65).
Childhood immunization
In the wake of the 1952 polio epidemic, the Junior League played a critical role in promoting the use of the polio vaccine, discovered by Dr. Jonas Salk, and for advocating for the rehabilitation of polio patients. In recognition for its efforts, the League received the March of Dimes Service Award in 1957 (100 Years, 101).