The creation of the American Legion Boys State program is largely credited to Hayes Kennedy, a professor who taught at the Loyola University School of Law in Chicago and was Americanism Chairman of the Illinois Department of the American Legion. In 1935, Mr. Kennedy honed the concept of Boys State as a means to stress the importance and value of our democratic form of government amongst the nation’s youth in order to maintain and preserve it as there were movements at the time being promoted by the Communist party denouncing democracy. The Illinois Department of the American Legion approved Mr. Kennedy's project and in June 1935, and the very first "Boys State" in the nation was held on the Illinois State Fairgrounds. From that beginning, the program swiftly spread among other American Legion Departments. By 1941, 34 states were conducting a Boys State program. Today, The American Legion conducts a Boys State program in 49 states and the District of Columbia. Hawaii is the only state that does not have a Boys State program. Boys State came to New Jersey in 1946 thanks to Harry Groome who heard about the program at a national convention in 1945.
The American Legion Boys State Program takes root
