Mary McDowell

Mary McDowell (November 30, 1854 –1936) was an American social reformer and prominent figure in the Chicago Settlement movement.

Mary Eliza McDowell was born on November 30, 1854 to Malcolm and Jane Welch Gordon McDowell in Cincinnati, Ohio as the oldest of six children. Her father was recognized for his distinguished service in the Civil War and support for the presidency helped to establish her political conviction. After the war, the family left for Chicago where her father opened and managed a steel rolling mill and the family joined the Methodist Church. The changes led her mother to become an invalid, no longer able to care for the family, and McDowell became responsible for her five brothers.

In the family’s first few years in Chicago, McDowell was involved in various relief efforts and religious involvement. During the Great Chicago Fire in 1871, McDowell and her father worked to help refugees by transporting people and their bellowing to the makeshift camp away from the fire. When aid was received from Ohio, McDowell took the lead in the relief effort and was later recognized by President Rutherford B. Hayes for her service. She later organized religious classes for young people that attracted prominent figures in the temperance movement, students from Northwestern University, and residents of Chicago.

McDowell first began work for Frances Williard, founder of the Women’s Christian Temperance Movement, where she met Elizabeth Harrison. With Harrison's support, McDowell started teaching kindergarten classes at the Hull House and helped to organize the women’s club under Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Star.

In 1893, The University of Chicago was in its second year of existence and wanted to start an initiative to become involved in the city and looked to the Settlement movement to do so. Working with the university’s Christian Union, Jane Addams, and Professor J. Laurence Laughlin, the university established the University of Chicago Settlement House in the Stock Yard District on January 1, 1894 at 4688 South Gross Avenue. Under Addams’ recommendation, they hired McDowell to head a larger Back of the Yards settlement house. Under her leadership, McDowell worked with residents of the stockyard to improve their neighborhood though education of politic rights and civic consciousness. A major initiative she headed early on was the establishment of civic clubs for both men and women.

In 1894, McDowell opened the University of Chicago Settlement House to alleviate the crowded, unsanitary housing immigrant families often faced. There, she organized classes, provided kindergarten education and accesses to vocational schools, bathing facilities, concerts, lectures, and clubs.

She lobbied the U.S. government to establish the Women’s Bureau to study living and working conditions of women and children.