Posts by year
2011
Steel MagNOL(i)As
Post-Katrina, the women of The Junior League of New Orleans took on corruption and injustice and advocated for coastal restoration, ultimately securing funding for the ecosystem and helping to reform…
So who was Mary Harriman’s best-known friend?
It’s a good bet that she was Anna Eleanor Roosevelt. While credit for the founding of The Junior League rightly belongs to Mary Harriman, she was supported in its early…
What's in a name?
They call it No Name-Calling Week, and there’s an interesting story behind it. It starts with a book called The Misfits by popular kids author James Howe. Now in its…
What’s in a name?
They call it No Name-Calling Week, and there’s an interesting story behind it. It starts with a book called The Misfits by popular kids author James Howe. Now in its…
Happy Birthday, Donna Fales!
No one ever said that Sustainers are not an amazing group of women. Just look at Donna Fales. As Captain of the USA Althea Gibson Cup Team, Donna led the…
The Volunteer Powerhouse, Chapter 2
Next up on our schedule of serialized reading is Chapter Two of The Volunteer Powerhouse, entitled “New Roles for Debutantes.” It explores the first decade of The Junior League and brings to light several traditions and core principles that remain vital threads in the Movement’s fabric even today.
We are given an in-depth portrait of the energetic and strong-willed Mary Harriman, who was intent on not living the life of the stereotypical sheltered rich girl by doing something meaningful with her life – and convincing her peers to do likewise. While commuting to Barnard one day in her horse-drawn carriage known as a sulky — or floating in a lake on her parents’ 20,000-acre estate in Orange County, N.Y. on another (reports conflict as to the timing of her idea)–she is said to have mused exuberantly that she and her fellow debutantes would go to work in the settlements on New York’s impoverished Lower East Side, work she had heard about in a lecture by Louise Lockwood.