Eleanor McMain

Eleanor Laura McMain (March 2, 1868 – May 12, 1934) was an American settlement house worker and progressive reformer. McMain served as head resident of Kingsley House, the largest and most influential settlement house in the American South, transforming Kingsley House into a focal point of progressive movements in the New Orleans area. Additionally, she furthered women's causes at a time of suffrage.

Early life and education Of Scottish-Irish Protestant heritage, McMain was born on March 2, 1868, on a farm in East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, along the Amite River, 17 miles from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Her parents were Jacob West McMain and Jane Josephine McMain (née Walsh). She was known as "Nellie" to family and friends during her youth. The training school of the Free Kindergarten Association combined with the Trinity Church Mission to form Kingsley House.

Career In 1900, shortly after Kingsley House formed, McMain was appointed director of Kingsley House, a settlement house dedicated to improving integration of poor people into society. It was then located in the Irish Channel section of New Orleans at 1600 Constance Street. Community activist Jane Addams visited New Orleans in 1900, and, so as to prepare for her new role, McMain studied at Addams's two Chicago settlement houses, Hull House and Chicago Center. In 1905, McMain led a clean-up and education campaign to help eradicate the yellow fever epidemic in the Irish Channel of New Orleans. This was natural in that Tulane University personnel participated in governance of Kingsley House, and their faculty and students worked there. Also that year, she helped prepare the charter of the New Orleans Central Council of Social Agencies, the forerunner of the local Community Chest and later United Way, and served as its president in 1927.

Expansion of Kingsley House necessitated fund-raising efforts. McMain organized fund-raising by members of Kingsley House, and she garnered funds from benefactors, most notably New Orleans benefactor Frank Williams who donated $300,000 to the settlement house. Additionally, the New Orleans States newspaper ran a special edition in 1922 to benefit Kingsley House.

McMain had presence nationally and internationally. She was active in the National Federation of Settlement and Neighborhood Centers, serving on its board of directors for six years. McMain was a member of the executive committee of the National Institute of Social Science. Through these connections, she relocated to Paris, France, for a year to help establish the L'Accueil Franco-Americain, a Parisian settlement house, founded by J. Catlin-Tauffleib, the American wife of a French General. This Parisian settlement house was located on the rue du Pré-St. Gervais, 40 bis, 19 ième arrondissement (Belleville), where she replicated many of her efforts at the Kingsley House in New Orleans. After a year, she returned to New Orleans. However, in its first 10 years, the L'Accueil Franco-Americain served approximately 70,000 people, an indication of its success.

Soon after returning to the United States, her health declined, and she died on May 12, 1934, aged 66, at home at Kingsley House, from heart disease complicated by hypertension. There were funeral services at Kingsley House and in Baton Rouge followed by final interment at the cemetery in Baton Rouge. Her funeral services were conducted by both a minister and a rabbi.

Awards and honors

Eleanor McMain was awarded the 1918 Times-Picayune Loving Cup for her community service. However, the actual presentation of the award took place two years later, at the opening of the 1920 meeting of the National Conference of Social Workers which was held in New Orleans that year. In accepting the award at the conference, with an audience of an estimated 4000 people, McMain stated, "I have done what I best love to do. I live and share my life with the dear people of the neighborhood."

McMain Secondary School in New Orleans is named in McMain's honor, the naming having occurred in 1930, while she was living. A biographical book about McMain was published in 1955. She was known colloquially as the "Jane Addams of New Orleans".