The Junior League of Minneapolis member chaired and organized the U.S. Committee of UNICEF and in 1952 was co-chairman of the Citizens for Eisenhower organization. In 1953, President Eisenhower appointed her to succeed Eleanor Roosevelt as the U.S. representative to the United Nations Human Rights Commission. She also was a U.S. alternate representative and U.S. delegate to the United Nations…
However, the experience of working in support of the war effort would change women’s attitudes about their roles in the peace to come, and The Junior League would benefit.
The Junior League of Nashville member joined a select group of women aviators in 1942 in what would become known as the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS), charged with piloting planes newly off the assembly line to military bases across the U.S., freeing up male aviators to engage in active combat. She was killed in a mid-air collision on a…
Oveta Culp Hobby was named Director of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (later called the Women’s Army Corps), which was created to fill gaps left by the shortage of men. Hobby rose to the rank of Colonel and was the first woman in the Army to receive the Distinguished Service Medal for her efforts during the war. Hobby, a Junior…
Learn more about women’s role in the armed services during WWII at the exhibit presented by the National Women’s History Museum, Partners in Winning the War: American Women in World War II.
View the online exhibit presented by the National Women’s History Museum, Partners in Winning the War: American Women in World War II.
Women had rallied to the patriotic call in the first world war, throwing their energies and organizations into war relief efforts at home. Some young women even volunteered to support troops overseas, but few women actually entered the workforce during the nineteen months the United States was at war. When war came again in the 1940s, it was a different…
At a time when few Braille books and other Spanish language resources were available for the visually impaired in Mexico, the Junior League of Mexico City established an international center for the blind that, in more than two decades of JLMC’s support, would grow to become the most complete center for the blind in the Spanish-speaking world.
