Max McConn

Born in 1881, Charles Maxwell McConn—who also published as Max McConn—was an American educator and author. Records from the Jane Addams Digital Edition identify him as Charles Maxwell McConn (1881–1953), and library catalogs connect the shorter byline “Max McConn” with his fiction, including Mollie’s Substitute Husband.

McConn appears to have built a substantial career in university life as well as in print. Contemporary university sources describe him as a former University of Illinois faculty member who later served as dean at Lehigh University, and later references from New York University note that he became dean of Washington Square College. That background helps explain why his writing about education feels practical and close to campus life rather than distant or abstract.

Alongside administrative work, he wrote books and essays about college culture and educational reform, including College or Kindergarten? and Planning for College. Even in his fiction, there is a clear interest in schools, manners, and the comic complications of everyday American life.