American Indian Women's Service League is chartered in 1957.

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In 1957, the American Indian Women's Service League is chartered. The mission of the organization is "to make Indians part of the community they live in and to get non-Indians to recognize us as an Indian group," in the words of the first director Pearl Warren, a member of the Makah tribe. The Service League founded several programs and organizations including the Seattle Indian Center, United Indians of All Tribes, the Seattle Indian Health Board, the American Indian Youth Club, and the Indian arts and crafts shop Traditions and Beyond.

One project, the Seattle Indian Center, was established in 1958 in a converted church at 1900 Boren Avenue. It provided a pre-school program, tutoring for high school students, emergency food and clothing, education and employment counseling, scholarships, and a gathering place for Seattle's estimated 5,000 Indians.

Like many other programs the Service League founded, the Seattle Indian Center later spun off as an independent agency.

Sources:
Mildred Tanner Andrews, Woman's Place: A Guide to Seattle and King County History (Seattle: Gemil Press, 1994), 187-188.

By HistoryLink.org Staff, December 11, 2000

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