Coit, Eleanor Gwinnell, 1894-1976

Eleanor Gwinnell Coit, labor education expert, was the daughter of Emma Gwinnell and Henry Coit, M.D., and was born in Newark, N.J., on May 6, 1894. She received an A.B. (1916) from Smith College and an A.M. (1919) from Columbia University.

Coit was Industrial Secretary of the New Jersey branches of the Young Women's Christian Association at Newark (1916-1917), and Orange (1917-1919), General Secretary at Bayonne (1919-1921), and Industrial Secretary of the YWCA at Buffalo, N.Y. (1922-1925). From 1926 until 1928 she was Industrial Secretary of the National YWCA in New York City. In 1928 Coit was appointed director of the Educational Department, the research arm of the Affiliated Schools for Women Workers in Industry (known later as the Affiliated Schools for Workers, 1929-1938, and the American Labor Education Service, 1938-1962). She was responsible for research in workers' education and for coordinating summer schools for workers.

In 1934 Coit succeeded Hilda Worthington Smith as director of ALES and retained this post until 1962, when the organization was disbanded. In 1935 she was awarded an American Scandinavian Fellowship and visited labor education programs in Sweden, Denmark, and England. During the late 1930s, she helped to establish workers' education programs in 75 different localities under the Works Progress Administration. From 1938, she worked with education directors of AFL-CIO unions to sponsor joint union/ALES education programs and conferences; beginning in 1952 these programs increasingly focussed on the United Nations and the involvement of labor in international affairs. ALES also fostered international exchanges of workers and arranged visits of foreign union members. At ALES, Coit drew on the expertise of a network of reform-minded women that included academic social scientists and former YWCA industrial and executive secretaries (including Marie Algor, Ernestine Friedmann, Alice Shoemaker, Amy Bruce, and Louise McLaren). These women directed summer schools, established workers' education programs, carried out research and field work, and ran seminars and conferences. Their years of cooperative work resulted in lasting friendships.

After retirement, Coit remained active in the Council of National Organizations for Adult Education, in church, labor, and social work associations. She died in 1976.