The Association of Junior Leagues International, Inc.

One Notable Leaguer is a woman you probably don’t know about (but you should) – Mary Harriman, the founder of the Junior League. She was a high-society New York debutante in turn-of-the-twentieth-century New York City, but her story adds a unique complement to the portrait your mind may have already painted for New York debutantes.

In the year 1900, New York City was diversifying at a rate unlike any other in history. Ellis Island was welcoming its peak number of new New Yorkers, tenements were becoming unbearably overcrowded, and factory working conditions were oppressive and brutal. Seemingly more than ever, the people of New York needed to come together in service of others. 

The daughter of wealthy New York railroad “titan” and financier E. H. Harriman, Mary Harriman grew up in a life of privilege; however, she recognized that her privilege required her to use it for the benefit of others. As an 18-year-old debutante in 1900, Mary realized that she and the other 85 New York debutantes that year had all of the promise, intelligence, connections, and youthful dedication needed to do great things in the NYC community. She saw in her peers an unlimited sea of assets, and so she set about to learn from other women who had worked to serve and empower their city communities in other parts of the country. After learning more about settlement programs in other cities (and the Hull House of Jane Addams’ work in Chicago), Mary began her work. She recognized that with the debutante system already in place, it would be simple to turn the “end” of the debut process into the “beginning” of a woman’s community service. In other words, once a woman “entered society,” she would really enter it through volunteer and philanthropic work. Her first class of young women totaled 10, and together they set forth their charter mission: “to enrich members’ lives by improving the living conditions” of New York’s tenement neighborhoods.

These NYC efforts into the settlement movement took off quickly, of course, and in 1903, the Junior League gained one of its most famous members, Eleanor Roosevelt; Mrs. Roosevelt was bored of the social niceties expected of women during this time, and she found the vocation of serving her community to be the best place for her time and talents.

As the settlement movement grew, Mary’s work within her community continued. At the age of 47, she joined the Democratic Party, an unusual move for women at the time (this move was so unusual, in fact, that the New York Times wrote a story about it). Six years later, at the age of 53, Mary became “one of the highest ranking women” in the Roosevelt administration when she was appointed Chair of the Consumer Advisory Board of the National Recovery Administration.

Months later, she died tragically in a horse-riding accident, but the organization she founded continues her ingenuity, her dedication, her boldness, and her heart for community service today.

Written By Mary Ellis Rice