The Junior League of the City of New York is the oldest Junior League in existence. In 1901, nineteen year old Barnard College student Mary Harriman, along with nine of her friends, established the New York Junior League, under the name the Junior League for the Promotion of Settlement Movements. The mission of that original group was that each year their group of young women will organize to contribute to the community. Eighty young women joined the first year, eager to expand their own lives by becoming involved in improving social conditions in their city. The first beneficiaries of the Junior League were residents of the New York College Settlement on the Lower East Side.
In 1903, Eleanor Roosevelt joined the group at the age of nineteen. Her volunteer activities include serving as a dance teacher for young girls living in a Lower East Side settlement house. To make sure that those around her were aware of the difficult conditions endured by settlement house residents, she invited her future husband, Franklin D. Roosevelt to accompany her to settlement houses where she volunteered. Both credited the NYJL for their social involvement work on a national scale, including many of the ideas put forth as part of The New Deal.
The NYJL has been involved in multitudes of projects, including purchasing and operating a safe apartment building for young working women in 1911, active participation in the suffrage movement, baby shelters, libraries, social support throughout the Depression and both World Wars, and advocacy for women, immigrants, and children's issues in New York state and beyond.
