Junior League

The Association of Junior Leagues International, Inc. (AJLI) is a non-profit organization of 291 Junior Leagues in Canada, Mexico, United Kingdom and the United States. Junior Leagues are educational and charitable women's organizations aimed at improving their communities through volunteerism and building their members' civic leadership skills through training. According to its mission, "The Association of Junior Leagues International Inc. (AJLI) is an organization of women committed to promoting voluntarism, developing the potential of women and improving communities through the effective action and leadership of trained volunteers. Its purpose is exclusively educational and charitable."

The first Junior League, the Junior League for the Promotion of the Settlement Movement (now the Junior League of the City of New York, Inc. also called the New York Junior League) was founded in 1901 in New York City by Mary Harriman Rumsey, daughter of railroad executive Edward H. Harriman. Inspired by a lecture on settlement movements that chronicled the works of social reformers such as Lillian Wald and Jane Addams, Mary organized others to become involved in settlement work. The organization's first project was working at the College Settlement on Rivington Street in New York City’s Lower East Side. The League was soon emulated, and by 1921, 30 Leagues joined to form the national association.

In 1921, after serving as New York City's Junior League president from 1907–1910 Dorothy Payne Whitney became the first president of the Association of Junior Leagues International Inc., operating as the umbrella organization for all Junior Leagues worldwide. There are currently 291 Leagues in Canada, the United States, Mexico and the UK. The first League outside the United States was in Montreal, Canada.

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