Junior League of Milwaukee


Click the image to learn more. Three Junior League members clean their meeting space located on the corner of Mason Street and Milwaukee Avenue in 1930.

Social worker Nell Alexander and future Girl Scout organizer Alice Chester founded Milwaukee’s local chapter of the Junior League in 1915. Organized as a nonprofit, voluntary association, the Junior League’s mission is educating young women on contemporary social issues and training them to develop leadership skills and serve in the community.[1] Milwaukee Junior Leaguers, or “Juniors,” volunteered for the Red Cross during the World Wars; established children’s arts and theater workshops; and improved the availability of healthcare services for inner city residents and victims of domestic abuse.[2] By the 2010s, over 600 Milwaukee Juniors were working on programs that, in particular, emphasized children’s health and well-being.[3]

Footnotes [+]

  1. ^ “Annual Reports, 1939-1947,” Box 3, Folder 5, Junior League of Milwaukee Records, 1916-2002, UWM Manuscript Collection 306, Archives Department, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries; “Mrs. Chester Dies; Was Civic Leader,” The Milwaukee Sentinel, July 13, 1972, part 1, p. 3.
  2. ^ “Annual Reports, 1916-1930,” Box 3, Folder 2, Junior League of Milwaukee Records, 1916-2002, UWM Manuscript Collection 306, Archives Department, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries.
  3. ^ Junior League of Milwaukee, “Current Community Programs,” accessed June 10, 2013, http://www.jlmilw.org/?nd=current_community_programs#diad.

For Further Reading

Junior League of Milwaukee Records, 1916-2002. UWM Manuscript Collection 306. Archives Department. University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries.

Junior League of Milwaukee. Be Wisconsin’s Guest: Recipes Collected and Tested by the Junior League of Milwaukee. Milwaukee: Junior League of Milwaukee, 1964.

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