By Claire Magee Ferguson
You may know that the Junior League of Charlotte, Inc. (JLC) had a heavy hand in starting Charlotte mainstays like Discovery Place. It shouldn’t surprise you then that with the help of AJLI, you can see Junior League fingerprints in museums and learning institutions all over the country! These 10 museums are just a taste of how the AJLI has enriched communities nationwide:
The Junior League of Denver collaborated with the Denver Art Museum in the 1940s in presenting children’s museum programs. This initiative led to the founding of the Children’s Museum of Denver in 1973. Ultimately, their program served as a prototype for many similar children’s museum programs worldwide.
The Junior League of Portland, Maine, in 1977, took two rooms of a vacant school building in Cape Elizabeth, ME and provided children’s museum programming. The Children’s Museum of Maine is now a four-story building in Portland and has since merged with another initiative started by the Junior League – the Children’s Theater of Portland.
The Junior League of Marietta, GA built the Cobb County Youth Museum, founded in 1964 and opened in 1970. League members were responsible for raising the funds, purchasing the land and constructing the building. It still serves about 15,000 people per year.
The Pittsburgh Children’s Museum was founded in 1980 with Junior League seed-funding. League members programmed 5,000 square feet of exhibits in the basement of the Old Post Office building, a historic landmark. It’s since expanded to the whole building. In 2013, the museum awarded the Junior League of Pittsburgh the Great Friend of Children Award.
The Audubon Louisiana Nature Center was started when the Junior League of New Orleans (JLNO) sat on the exploration and steering committee for the idea. The JLNO assisted with funding and provided board members and volunteers.
The Milton J. Rubenstein of Science and Technology in Syracuse, NY, came about when the Junior League joined forces with the National Council of Jewish Women and the Technology Club of Syracuse. The museum, originally planned as a children’s museum, expanded the scope to allow it to serve the entire community.
The Junior League of West Palm Beach started the Junior Museum of West Palm Beach, which later took iterations as the Science Museum and Planetarium of Palm Beach County and finally the Cox Science Center and Aquarium. It now has collections on paleontology, astronomy, an aquarium and even one of the top mini-golf courses in the country.
In 1977, the Junior League of Harrisburg, PA, had an idea to establish a hands-on science center and sponsored a pilot project called Sensorama in the William Penn Memorial Museum in 1979. The exhibit was so successful that the effort turned into a physical, natural and life science museum now called the Whitaker Center for Science and the Arts.
The Junior League of Rockford, IL, in conjunction with the Rockford Area Arts Council, founded the Discovery Center Museum in October 1981. In the first year, they hosted 6,000 children on field trips. Today, 275,000 people travel through each year to see their 300 exhibits.
Discovery Children’s Museum in Las Vegas was the work of the Junior League of Las Vegas when they combined forces with the Allied Arts Council to form an autonomous children’s museum with hands-on exhibits.
