Famous Women of the Junior League

March is Women’s History Month and for the past few weeks we have been sending out tweets with quotes from famous women in history. But now we'd like to focus on famous women who demonstrated extraordinary commitment to voluntarism and public service.  After spending time in their local Junior League chapters, all of these women went on to make significant contributions on a national, or even international, scale.

One of the first members of the Junior League, Eleanor Roosevelt noted in her 1937 autobiography, This is My Story, that she joined the group in an effort to “do something helpful in the city in which we lived.”  As a Junior League member, she taught calisthenics and dancing to immigrant children in the settlement houses of New York’s Lower East Side.  This experience resonated with Eleanor and years later, her husband Franklin Delano Roosevelt credited her and the Junior League with showing him a side of New York he had never seen before.  She went on to become a First Lady, the first U.S. delegate to the United Nations and chair of the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women under President Kennedy.  

Oveta Culp Hobby started out as an attorney, journalist and member of the Junior League of Houston.  When World War II began, she headed the War Department’s Women’s Interest Section before being named First Commander of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corp in 1941.  In this role, she travelled the country encouraging women to enlist and found jobs for them within the army.  She then went on to serve as the first U.S. Secretary of Health, Education & Welfare, where, among other things, she made the decision to approve the first polio vaccine.  

Well-known as a child star of the 1930s, Shirley Temple Black helped raise the spirits of moviegoers during the Great Depression with her bright smile and dimples.   After retiring from the big screen at 21, the Junior League of Palo Alto member went on to become an international public figure.  Shirley headed the Multiple Sclerosis Society in the 1960s and helped found the International Federation of Multiple Sclerosis Societies to fight the disease that afflicted her brother.  She was appointed to the U.S. delegation to the United Nations General Assembly and held a number of diplomatic posts during her lifetime, including U.S. ambassador to Czechoslovakia during the fall of the Iron Curtain.

Sandra Day O’Connor is known as a thoughtful former Justice of the Supreme Court who ruled on many important issues.  While her vote tended to reflect her moderate conservative views, she did not make her decisions lightly and carefully considered her cases.  She was actually very active in public service even before being appointed  to the Supreme Court in 1981, not only as an Assistant Attorney General and then State Senator in Arizona, but also as a member, and president, of the Junior League of Phoenix.  Her accomplishments were acknowledged by President Obama in 2009 when she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States.  

These are only a few of the remarkable women who started out as Junior League members – you can find many more here.  Despite having very different careers and backgrounds, each of these women have initiated lasting community change through their dedication to public service.