On November 13, 1867, Jane McKimmon, leader of North Carolina’s home demonstration movement, was born.
State-sponsored home demonstration work began in North Carolina in 1911. Its aim was to educate girls on canning, gardening and other domestic tasks, and the home demonstration movement was a forerunner to what’s now the 4-H system. McKimmon, who was known for keeping a neat garden on Raleigh’s Blount Street, was hired to “take charge of the ‘girl’s canning work.’”
McKimmon expanded the size and scope of the program, growing its enrollment from 416 women in 14 counties to 75,000 women in all of North Carolina’s 100 counties by 1941. Her work, by one estimation, “led rural women and girls to a fuller, more comfortable, and efficient life.”
McKimmon was the first woman in the nation to receive the “Distinguished Ruby Award” of Epsilon Sigma Phi, the honorary extension fraternity. In 1966, she was elected to the North Carolina Agricultural Hall of Fame which is located in the Agriculture Building in downtown Raleigh.
The continuing education center at North Carolina State University, built in 1975, is named in her honor.
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