archives@tulane.edu / Pillars of elite white supremacy, wealthy southern white women, through their work on social welfare projects, transitioned from their roles as influential dependents and stakeholders within individualist economic systems to unselfconscious political citizens in the early twentieth century. This dissertation traces that transition through a single, elite women’s organization: the Junior League. The following chapters tell the stories of the oldest Leagues in the Deep South: the Junior Leagues of New Orleans, Louisiana; Jackson, Mississippi; Montgomery, Alabama; Birmingham, Alabama; Atlanta, Georgia; and Savannah, Georgia. The Association of Junior Leagues of America (AJLA) is an elite women’s voluntary association born out of the settlement movement in late 1890s New York and experienced explosive growth in the decade following suffrage. Out of regional pride and a desire for class solidification, southern debutantes formed Junior Leagues in their own cities. By tracing members’ relationship to gender, race, and class, this dissertation contributes to the larger narrative of the twentieth century women's rights movement through the addition of supposedly apolitical Junior Leaguer's unselfconscious claim to political citizenship. Their administration of health clinics in the Deep South is especially revealing because it was through this work that they performed their citizenship via community investment and collaboration with the state. Junior Leaguers built, constructed, and maintained their projects with the goal of demonstrating their usefulness to the State, which they hoped would, in turn, take the project and its work under the umbrella of state-run services. / 1 / Anna Morgan Leonards
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TULANE/oai:http://digitallibrary.tulane.edu/:tulane_122053 |
| Date | January 2021 |
| Contributors | Leonards, Anna (author), Haugeberg, Karissa (Thesis advisor), School of Liberal Arts History (Degree granting institution) |
| Publisher | Tulane University |
| Source Sets | Tulane University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | electronic, pages: 207 |
| Rights | 6 months, Copyright is in accordance with U.S. Copyright law. |
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