Julian Steele, a Boston Latin School and Harvard graduate, as the director of the Robert Gould Shaw House in the 1930s, was the leader in the expansion of social, recreational, and educational programs for the youth of the South End and lower Roxbury. From 1938-49 he directed the Armstrong-Hemingway Foundation. He served as Boston's NAACP president from 1945-48 and as president of the Urban League of Greater Boston. Later he served on the Massachusetts State Parole Board, as the State's first Commissioner of Community Affairs in 1965, and as Deputy Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Commerce.