LeClaire Historic District is a historic district located in Edwardsville, Illinois. The community was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 8, 1979.

N. O. Nelson Nils Olas Nelson (September 11, 1844 – October 5, 1922) was an American industrialist and businessman who was the founder of the N. O. Nelson Manufacturing Company. Background Nelson was born the son of Anders Nelson at Lillesand in Aust-Agder, ...

, the owner of the Nelson Manufacturing Company, established the town between 1890 and 1895 on donated land. Nelson planned the town to be an

intentional community An intentional community is a voluntary residential community which is designed to have a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork from the start. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, political, religious, ...

inspired by ideals such as Edward Bellamy's novel '' Looking Backward'' and the Ethical Culture movement. The community included an academy which offered free adult education and reading rooms, which was inspired by a self-culture hall in St. Louis. Nelson also established a

profit sharing Profit sharing is various incentive plans introduced by businesses that provide direct or indirect payments to employees that depend on company's profitability in addition to employees' regular salary and bonuses. In publicly traded companies thes ...

system in the community. The system was derived from a concept used at the Maison LeClaire in Paris, from which the community took its name. As LeClaire was an open community, its residents were not all company employees, nor were employees required to live in the community. However, the company provided utilities and public facilities to LeClaire residents. Journalist Nellie Bly compared the community favorably to Pullman in Chicago, and Ida Tarbell also wrote about the community.

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