Supporting the arts at the community level
By the end of the decade, Leagues reported over 300 community arts projects, the result of a decades-long emphasis on children’s theaters and museums.
An AJLA Annual Conference workshop is conducted by then-Senator John F. Kennedy
During the workshop, “entitled Citizen Relationships to Legislation,” Kennedy stressed the importance of public opinion on legislation and asked that groups such as The Junior League keep adequately informed on all types of pending legislation in the public interest. The group met in the old Supreme Court Chamber in the Capitol, which was also (for a time during the Civil…
The Supreme Court revokes the legal basis for school segregation in its Brown v. Board of Education decision
In a landmark case, the United States Supreme Court declared state laws that established segregated public schools for black and white students unconstitutional. On November 14, 1960, Ruby Bridges was one of six children given the opportunity to attend a white school. Learn more about Ruby’s brave journey.
Addressing the health needs of children
The Junior League of Tulsa’s Convalescent Home, founded in 1926, became the Children’s Hospital Center, with 55 agencies aiding in the transition. This is only one of many successful initiatives by Leagues to create healthcare facilities for children over the decades.
Tackling the challenge of a new communications medium
After the Federal Communications Commission set aside television channels for education, Junior Leagues were among the first to promote quality children’s programming, several Leagues producing live weekly TV shows featuring panel discussions with teenagers. The League focus on quality television for children would continue into the 1960s.
A new focus on education
By the early years of the decade, nearly 150 Leagues were providing volunteers for remedial reading centers, diagnostic testing programs, and programs for gifted and challenged children.
With more women in the workforce, The League adapts
Members were younger and more likely to work outside of the home. As a result, the Junior League of the City of New York, for example, started offering evening activities to accommodate working members.
The Republican Senator from Maine confronts McCarthy and McCarthyism
Margaret Chase Smith, a League member from Maine and the first woman to serve in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, was also the first woman nominated for president by a major political party, the Republicans, in 1964. Known as a moderate, she is often remembered for her 1950 speech, “Declaration of Conscience,” in which she criticized the…
Leaving a legacy of museums
The Junior League of Miami opened the Junior Museum of Miami in a small frame house downtown. Out of that tiny space grew the Miami Museum of Science. Three years later, the Junior League of San Francisco, working with partners, opened the San Mateo County Junior Museum, which became the Coyote Point Museum for Environmental Education. Many other Leagues would…
1950s: Home From the War
When the men came home from the war, the women were sent home from their jobs. Their patriotic duty done, women were to retreat to the home and hearth, settling into a peacetime life of ranch houses, all-electric kitchens, and swirling Christian Dior—style skirts. Instead of chauffeuring in military brigades, they ferried their children around the suburbs in station-wagon carpools….