During World War 1 (1914-1918), President Woodrow Wilson instructed the War Department to find a way to involve the working women of the United States in the war effort. After looking around at women in positions of leadership, they chose Dr. Lena Madesin Phillips, a young lawyer from Nicholasville, Kentucky who was the Executive Director of the Lexington Avenue Young Women's Christina Association (YMCA) in new York City ti implement the program, giving her a small monetary grant to facilitate her work.
Phillips proceeded to hold regional meetings in various areas of the country with local professional women. At the end of the war, she still had some funds left, and the women she had involved in the war effort, who had found the meetings to be fruitful, wished to meet again. As a midpoint, St. Louis, Missouri was chosen for what was to be the final meeting, since it easily reachable by train from all areas of the country.
As a result of that meeting, the National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs (BPW/USA) was founded on the 15th of July 1919, and Phillips was elected as the President. New York was one of the founding Federations. BPW Brookhaven was founded in September 1958 by a group of local women who felt the need for a forum to express their ideas and needs.
While reaffirming its role as an advocate for working women around the state, the former New York Federation of Business and Professional Women adopted a new name, New York State Women, Inc in June 2009.