JUNIOR LEAGUE OF SAINT PAUL:

The Junior League of St. Paul was formed on May 7, 1917 with 50 charter members. The founding leaders were Elizabeth Ames Jackson, Elizabeth Crunden Skinner, and Anne Turney White. The St. Paul League was the 19th League to be formed in the United States and was one of 30 which helped found the Association of Junior Leagues of America in 1921.

The mission of the St. Paul Junior League parallels the purposes of other Junior Leagues across America and have not, in essence, changed since the St. Paul League was originally founded. In brief, their mission is to provide volunteer services and charitable contributions to improve the social, economic, educational, and cultural conditions of the community. Membership is open by invitation to women between the ages of 18 and 40 and each member is expected to give a minimum number of hours in weekly volunteer service. Because the League also requires its provisional members to pay an initiation fee as well as annual dues, membership has typically appealed to the more privileged classes of women's society.

Since its beginnings, the Junior League of St. Paul has participated in a number of diverse projects and activities. Some of the League's first projects included participating in Red Cross campaigns and Liberty Loan drives during World War I, volunteering in the St. Paul Neighborhood House, teaching at the Phalen Park Hospital for Crippled Children, and sewing and mending clothing. In 1923 the League began its first independent project by opening and staffing a convalescent home for women which operated for eight years. The League also helped organize the Children's Hospital Association in 1933 to raise money for a free bed fund. A part of the fund raising for the Children's Hospital Association included bringing the first Ice Follies to St. Paul. In 1949 the League opened its longest standing fund raising project to date, the Next-to-New Shop, a second hand clothing store to which all members are required to make donations and from which proceeds are used to support the League's philanthropic causes. In 1950 the League conducted a Community Arts Survey to explore the cultural needs of St. Paul. The results of this survey and the League's later cooperation with the city's Council on Arts and Sciences provided the impetus for a great many projects dedicated to promoting the arts throughout the latter part of the twentieth century.

Historical information was taken from the collection.

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The collection provides information documenting the history of the League, its administration, and its activities. Included within the records are administrative and procedural files, minutes of meetings of the board and membership, proposals, reports, committee files, financial records, newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, and photographs. Also included are files specifically pertaining to the League's special events, its charitable and volunteer projects, and its relationship with the Association of Junior Leagues of America.

The strength of the collection are the project files, which detail the League's involvement in, as well as their impact upon, the social, economic, and cultural welfare of the community. Projects undertaken by the League touched many population groups, such as the aged, children, foreign immigrants, and the physically handicapped, and affected many aspects of community life including the arts, housing, medical care, parenting skills, the preservation of historic buildings, and the prevention of substance abuse.

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These records are divided into the following five sections:

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Availability:

The collection is open for research use.

Preferred Citation:

[Indicate the cited item and/or series here]. Junior League of St. Paul. League Records. Minnesota Historical Society.

See the Chicago Manual of Style for additional examples.

Processing Information:

Processed by: Kathryn A. Johnson, February 1987; Monica Manny Ralston, December 1997; Jennifer Huebscher, May 2013.

Catalog ID number: 990017345570104294

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Arranged somewhat alphabetically, these files include background information, articles of incorporation and bylaws, procedural and orientation manuals, minutes of board, executive committee, and membership meetings, committee and task force materials, correspondence authored by the League's presidents, financial records, newspaper clippings, and publicity scrapbooks.

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Correspondence, committee minutes, planning and evaluation materials, budgets, financial reports, programs, promotional materials, printed materials, and newspaper clippings related to the League's anniversaries, theatricals, and other fund raising activities.

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The photographs depict Junior League meetings, special events, projects, and fund raising activities, as well as the League's headquarters, officers, and selected members. The photographs span the 1920s through the 1970s though the majority date from the 1930s or 1960s. Many are prints from the St. Paul Dispatch and Pioneer Press newspapers. Newspaper clippings of the stories which accompanied many of these prints are available in the League's publicity scrapbooks (Boxes 13-14). A few unidentified and undated photographs are included in the first folder.

Specific League activities and projects illustrated by the photographs include the following:

1920s: League members sewing clothing for infants and children, the League's first gift shop at the St. Paul Hotel, costume selection and dance rehearsal for the 1927 and 1929 theatricals, and women recuperating in the Convalescent Home for Women.

1930s: Provisional class members, Christmas Seal campaign workers, cabaret casts and rehearsals, and League members participating in membership and fund raising campaigns for the Children's Hospital Association.

1940s: Headquarters office building at 193 St. Anthony Street, a group portrait of Lynn Bremer and Katy Fisher with Hal Brown at a hockey benefit, a rummage sale, and various theatrical performances.

1950s: Window dressing, stocking, and shopping at the Next-to-New Shop.

1960s: 1961 officers of the Association of Junior Leagues, provisional class members, interior views of the office headquarters at 648 Grand Avenue, vision and hearing screenings of pre-school children, opening speech by Governor Anderson at the 1962 African Studies Institute, 50th anniversary celebrations, cabaret rehearsals and performances, fashion shows, the Next-to-New Shop, school aide project, children at the Nature Center at Camp Wilder, the banding of a yellow warbler at the Nature Center, and elementary school performances by the League's Paper Box Players.

1970s: Next-to-New Shop, auction, and performances during the 1976 Extravaganza theatrical.

Additional photographs illustrating specific League activities are included within some of the project files. These include interior views of the Livingston-Griggs house, prints showing traditional Hmong dress and textiles from the League's Hmong Community Art Project, interior and exterior views of the Next-to-New shop at 999 Payne Avenue, a child in a wheelchair being pushed by a U.S. Army sergeant (St. Paul's Lindsay School project), and 35mm color transparencies of the Nature Center trail associated with the Science Museum of Minnesota.

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This series includes administrative handbooks and project manuals issued by the Association of Junior Leagues of America (AJLA), as well as general files detailing the relationship between AJLA, area councils, and the St. Paul League. Also included are materials from the Association's national conferences dating from 1967-1982.

Most noteworthy are the survey forms completed by members of the St. Paul League as part of an organizational self assessment conducted by AJLA in 1978. These surveys provide demographic data on the membership of the St. Paul League, as well as the perceptions of each member regarding their local League.

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Arranged alphabetically by the name of each specific project, the project files offer an extensive sample of the local activities undertaken by the League in fulfilling their mission of community service. The files contain background information, project proposals, minutes of project steering committee meetings, agreements between the League and other organizations which cooperated with or benefited from the League's projects, correspondence, progress reports, budgets, financial data and reports, newspaper clippings, photographs, and printed materials.

Projects undertaken by the League were intended to benefit the social and cultural aspects of the local community. Project topics ranged from convalescent care for women and fund raising for a children's hospital in the early 1920s and 1930s, to educational radio and television programming in the 1940s and 1950s, to senior citizen housing facilities, preschool vision and hearing testing, and school volunteer programs in the 1960s and 1970s, to programs supporting Hmong refugees and arts in the 1980s. The project files also include a great deal of information, including financial records covering 1949-1978, related to the Next-to-New thrift shop, the League's longest standing fund raising activity.

Additional newspaper articles related to some of the League's projects may be referenced in the League's publicity scrapbooks (Boxes 13-14). The photograph series also includes many prints illustrating specific League activities and projects. A project manual issued by the Association of Junior Leagues of America (AJLA) is included with the AJLA files.

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Newsletters and annual reports published by the League are available in the Minnesota Historical Society serials collection.

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This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the Minnesota Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons or places should search the catalog using these headings.

Topics:

Fund raising -- Minnesota -- Saint Paul.

Social service -- Minnesota -- Saint Paul.

Voluntarism -- Minnesota -- Saint Paul.

Women -- Minnesota -- Saint Paul -- Societies and clubs.

Women -- Minnesota -- Saint Paul -- Charitable contributions.

Women volunteers in social services -- Minnesota -- Saint Paul.

Place:

Saint Paul (Minn.) -- Charities.

Organization:

Association of the Junior Leagues of America.

Types of Documentation:

Account books.

Photographs.

Radio scripts.

Slides.

Surveys.

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