A new feminist movement surfaced in the early 1970s as more and more women entered the workplace. By the end of the decade, slightly over half of all American women worked outside the home. More than 60 percent of those women had school-age children, and another 45 percent had children under the age of six. Women married later, and the…
A movie superstar before she was 10, Junior League of Palo Alto member Shirley Temple had a great second act in life. In 1969, she was named a Delegate to the United Nations and was then appointed ambassador to Ghana in 1974. Two years later, she became the Chief of Protocol of the United States, retaining the position until 1977….
The Junior League of Toledo’s pioneering documentary Fate of a River: Apathy or Action, released in 1965, led to an invitation to testify in front of a Congressional committee debating the merits of the Clean Water Act, which was enacted in 1972 to deal with environmental problems such as those affecting Ohio’s Maumee River, the subject of the documentary.
JFK, as Senator and later as President, invited The Junior League to crucial meetings, including the President’s Committee for the Employment of the Handicapped, the President’s Council on Fitness of Youth, a meeting to form the National Service Corps, and a special meeting of influential women to discuss civil rights.
From her first show in 1963 until her death 41 years later, “The French Chef” and former Junior League of Pasadena member was a force to be reckoned with. Julia was honored by the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 2007. Read more about her on the NWHoF.
In addition to continuing the League focus on fostering quality children’s television, some Leagues used the still-new medium to draw attention to larger problems. The Junior League of Greater Princeton pioneered a TV show focused on drug education. The Junior League of Boston worked with public television station WGBH to produce hour-long documentaries that looked at schools, hospitals, and training…
The 1960s are remembered as a time of turmoil and dramatic social change, war protest, civic rights demonstrations, hallucinatory drugs, youthful rebellion, and riots in the cities. The decade opened with the election of the first Catholic president in the United States, the Bay of Pigs invasion, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. A war the French had lost in Vietnam…
