A Century of Service

1915-12-31 00:00:00

A Serendipitous Visit to New York City

When the 1915 debut season came to a close, Isoline Orme Campbell visited her friend Grace Henry, then president of the New York Junior League. She brought home theater programs, close fitting velvet turbans, pocketbooks suspended from bracelets and beaded dresses from Fifth Avenue. And she also brought home an idea. Her debutante friends in New York had excited her with accounts of an organization, the Junior League, through which the successive debs since 1901 were connected with practically every charitable work in New York, becoming aware of the social problems of their city and learning to attack these problems. Its inception came with the New York girls’ realization that sending their debut flowers to children’s hospitals gave nothing of themselves to their community. Now their number had grown to 900 members, and the debs of Philadelphia, Boston, Portland, Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland, Montreal, Washington and San Francisco had also established Junior Leagues of their own. After witnessing what she described to The Atlanta Journal in 1941 as the "very efficient looking New York League," Isoline returned home with the idea of starting a similar organization in Atlanta.

1916-10-02 07:23:07

Junior League of Atlanta (JLA) is Founded

On October 2, 1916, Isoline Campbell and 45 women from the debutante classes of 1914, 1915 and 1916 met at the Piedmont Driving Club to hear her idea for an Atlanta Chapter of the Junior League and voted that day to apply for membership. JLA was the fifteenth chapter of Junior League in the country. On October 24th, the League planned their first fundraising event, the Butterfly Ball (also called Le Bal des Papillons), telling the press "We are girls working for girls who have not the same joys and comforts that we have."

1917-01-01 00:00:00

JLA Partners with Red Cross

The League responded to World War I with Red Cross courses essential to the relief effort. Additionally, with an idea borrowed from their counterparts in New York, the League founded the Domestic Science Institution to instruct young women in household arts. The institution consisted of a model apartment where ninety women, for ten dollars each, took courses in cooking, sewing and interior decorating. The school soon included a Red Cross dietetics course, a canteen course and the first Red Cross diet kitchen in the south where women cooked for local military hospitals.

1917-05-24 00:00:00

JLA Helps Fund Home for Girls

With funds raised by the Junior League at the 1916 Butterfly Ball, the Churches Home for Girls is founded. It acted as a home for working girls and young women whose jobs didn't pay a living wage.

1918-12-31 00:00:00

JLA Partners with Sheltering Arms

JLA volunteers began serving at Sheltering Arms Day Nursery. In 1918, Isolene Campbell was replaced by Robyn (Mrs. Edwin) Peeples as League President. When Isoline was transferring the League records to the new President, she accidentally sent her collection of old love letters.

1920-01-01 00:00:00

League Establishes a Free School Library

All text books of the time had to be purchased by individual students, and for many families this was impossible. In the first year the library supplied 92 grammar school children with their books, and the next year nearly one thousand dollars was used to equip 432 children, in 28 schools with their texts. The League stepped up to assit 105 junior and high school students with the purchase of their books. In addition, the League bought countless books of street car tickets to enable needy Atlantan children to attend school.

1920-01-01 00:00:00

Junior League Follies Raise Funds

At this point, dues were just $2.00 per year, and $8,000 was a comfortable annual income. Junior League members planned and performed the first of several Junior League Follies, which was a phenomenon of its own; the League hired a director from New York City who came with elaborate costumes and sets and taught "modern," if not occasionally risque, chorus routines and skits to members and their husbands. Follies were held each year from 1920 through 1923, raising as much as $7,000 a year.

1920-11-25 00:00:00

Members Distribute Holiday Baskets

Volunteers became active in the children's clinics at Grady Hospital and distributed the first Christmas baskets for the needy.

1920-12-31 00:00:00

League Serves Grady, Egleston and Hillside Cottages

Throughout the twenties, League volunteers regularly volunteered at Grady Hospital, Egleston Hospital and Hillside Cottages, a shelter for needy women and children.

1921-01-01 00:00:00

The Association of Junior Leagues of America is Formed

From 1901 to 1921 thirty Junior Leagues around the country organized and operated as independent units. In 1921, Atlanta joined the other units to form a central organization, The Association of Junior Leagues of America. It later became the Association of Junior Leagues, Inc., and is now called the Association of Junior Leagues International, Inc.

A Century of Service

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