BOWEN, LOUISE DE KOVEN (Mrs. Joseph Tilton Bowen), the daughter of John and Helen (Hadduck) [de Koven], was born in Chicago, Ill., February 26, 1859.
Mrs. Bowen, who is one of the most distinguished citizens of Chicago, unlike most of her fellow-citizens, traces her lineage to Fort Dearborn itself. Her grandfather, Edward H. Hadduck, came to the Fort in the early thirties as a young government agent, bring $200,000 in gold for governmental uses. He was so delighted with his impression of the virgin prairie extending south and west from the Fort, situated on the Lake at the mouth of the river, and so convinced of the commercial possibilities to be developed from the trading posts already established there, that he returned a year later with his bride, driving from western Ohio in a typical prairie schooner. Like all the other settlers, he was obliged for his own protection, to live within the stockade of the Fort and his daughter Helen, born there, was the third white girl, according to tradition, born on the territory which has since become Chicago. Mr. Hadduck was a typical pioneer citizen who amassed a large fortune in the opportunities which Chicago offered him, and was conspicuous in all the city's early history. Mrs. Bowen in some early recollections which she has set down for the benefit of her children thus describes him and his house: "My earliest recollections are clustered around an old-fashioned red brick house which belonged to my grandfather, which was set back from the road on the corner of Wabash Avenue and Monroe Street. There were shade [trees] in front of the house and a broad strip of greensward before the roadway was reached. This road was made of good black prairie soil. When it was muddy, it was almost impassable and when it was dry, there were huge ruts which shook up every one who drove over them. [page 2]
"In these early days, the cattle for the Stock Yards were unloaded at the Randolph Street Station of the Illinois Central and were often driven through the streets to the Yards. Michigan Avenue was not much more than a sandy beach, and as Wabash Avenue was a harder and better roadway, the cattle were frequently driven down this Avenue. Sometimes the steers would become frightened and would rush from one side of the street to the other, coming up onto the sidewalk and [imperiling] the passersby. Many a day I have quickly climbed over the low iron fence around my grandfather's house, in order to get away from the frightened beasts.
"Almost next door to my grandfather's house was a little hotel, the old Clifton House, where the Lincolns often stopped when they were in town. Tad Lincoln was a great friend of mine and I remember Mrs. Lincoln talking to us as we played together.
"Sometimes as we slowly drove our horse and buggy through the town, my grandmother would tell me stories of the early days in Chicago, when she lived in the Fort and used to pull herself across the Chicago River on a little flat boat, which was propelled by the passengers pulling a rope stretched across the river. She would tell me how she used to pull herself across the Chicago River on a flat boat, which was propelled by the passenger pulling a rope stretched across the river. She would tell me how she used to go to the North side to pick blackberries, how oftentimes, she would hear an Indian coming and would crouch down beside the bushes until he had passed. Then there were thrilling tales of Indian massacres, and of her experience of being shut up in the Fort in one room, with fifty other people, for several days, while the Indians bombarded the place, shooting flaming arrows into the fort, and often attempting to set it on fire, and how happy the beleaguered were when the scout, who had been sent out to get help, returned with some soldiers and the Indians were dispersed.
"She would point out to me as we drove, the prairie schooner wagons [page 3] which were often seen in our streets and recall the lovely drive she had had to early Chicago, although as they drove she always sat with a loaded rifle across her knees."
Dearborn Seminary where Mrs. Bowen was educated was at that time situated on the present site of Marshall Field's great store, although before Mrs. Bowen graduated, the school had been moved to Twenty-Second Street and Wabash Avenue, where it remained for many years a pioneer outpost of education for the young women of Chicago. Mrs. Bowen finished her school life when she was sixteen, but as the graduation exercises were held in a large church, her father unfortunately would not allow her to be so unwomanly as to appear. The incident is interesting in the light of Mrs. Bowen's later successes as a public speaker.
For some years after this [inglorious] graduation, the active young girl occupied herself with such public work as was allowed her. Naturally it was to be found only in connection with the church. She established a bible class at St. James Church of one hundred young men. Chicago at that time was full of enterprising youths who had taken Horace Greeley's advice, to go West. They lived in rather uncomfortable boarding houses and although many of them evolved later into leading citizens, they were then lonely and forlorn. Their enterprising Bible Class teacher came to know them very well and finally established a Club House for them on Huron Street which was her first large public philanthropy. Her second venture was a kitchen garden association which she established with Miss Eleanor Ryerson and pushed with characteristic energy. She was married in June 1886, to Joseph Tilton Bowen who had come to Chicago from Providence, R.I. During the next decade she was very much absorbed in her four children and her public activity was largely confined to work in connection with the Children's Memorial Hospital. She was President of the Board and built a wing that the [page 4] Hospital might extend its usefulness. She was also President of the Woman's Board of the Passavant Hospital and the Vice President of the Board of St. Luke's during this same period.
In 1896 she became a Trustee and the Treasurer of Hull-House, the pioneer Social Settlement of Chicago, and with characteristic earnestness and devotion, identified herself with its manifold activities. Her many generous gifts to the Settlement were in a large measure the outgrowth of her personal knowledge of the neighborhood and its needs. She was for seventeen years a member, and for many years the President of the Hull-House Woman's Club for whom she built a spacious hall. This not only housed the Club activities, but many other social and educational enterprises carried on at Hull-House, notably an open dance once a week verifying Mrs. Bowen's belief that the public dance may be made a wholesome as well as a popular form of recreation. She also built a large five-story structure to take care of the activities of the 2500 men and boys, after she had become familiar with the great need for better recreational facilities in the vicinity and the influence politicians often obtain over young men through the control not only of saloons, but of club and billiard rooms as well.
Mrs. Bowen also gave to Hull-House, in memory of her husband, who died in 1911, the Joseph Tilton Bowen Country Club consisting of seventy-two acres of beautiful land at Waukegan, Illinois. On this site she restored a fine old house and erected a Commons, containing a commodious kitchen and [dining room]. This Club she endowed so that its woods, ravines and gardens might always be properly cared for. Children and their mothers in groups of two hundred come here every summer from the congested parts of Chicago to enjoy [a fortnights'] outing amidst its beautiful and healthful surroundings. [page 5]
The first Juvenile Court not only of America, but "in the world," was opened in Chicago in 1899, largely through the influence of a group of women who felt that children were too easily arrested, were confined in wretched quarters, often with debasing companions, and in the end did not receive the care to which they were entitled. The Judiciary of Cook County established the court and [cooperated] in every way in the new undertaking. But the group of which Mrs. Bowen was one of the leading spirits, were very anxious that the Court should be a model in every respect and made themselves responsible for a staff of probation officers, without whom the whole plan would have been more or less a travesty. They organized the Juvenile Court Committee with Miss Julie Lathrop, who afterwards became the first Chief of the Children's Bureau in Washington, as President. She was succeeded the following year by Mrs. Bowen, who for seven years, with the Committee, took not only the responsibility of securing the salaries of the constantly increasing numbers of Probation Officers, but of presiding over the deliberations of the Committee as they carefully considered case after case brought before them by the Probation Officers, sorely in need of help and advice in their work. The members of the Committee, especially Mrs. Bowen as President, sat quite regularly in the new Court in a chair beside the Judge, who was always ready to discuss his decisions with them. This same Committee established a home for children who needed to be kept for a few weeks awaiting trial and under no circumstances did they permit a child to be put in a police station or jail. In 1907 the Juvenile Court Committee secured the legislation which placed the salaries of the Probations Officers as well as the maintenance of the Juvenile Detention Home upon Cook County, and while the Juvenile Court Committee was thus freed of financial responsibility, for many years it continued its interest in dependent and delinquent children, [page 6] advocating the Mothers Pension Law, and other safeguarding measures which became attached to the Juvenile Court. At this time the Committee with Mrs. Bowen still acting as President, turned its attention to the formation of a Juvenile Protective Association, the purpose of which is to reach the child before he yields to temptation, to influence his parents, to raise the standard of the home, and to keep him from committing the crimes and misdemeanors which take him into the Court. This Association receives every year about six thousand complaints concerning children who are going wrong or concerning conditions demoralizing to children. It prosecutes in the courts when necessary, it labors with parents and guardians, and it endeavors to bring about an enlightened public opinion which will put out of business those place [imperiling] children and young people. Mrs. Bowen has been President of this Association ever since its inception twenty-two years ago. It has been followed by the formation of Juvenile Protective Associations in many other states although there is no national body.
Although her primary interest was in the children, Mrs. Bowen realized that children with every possible safeguard and special attention cannot be secure unless decent general conditions surround all of the citizens, big and little, and all laws fearlessly enforced. This is clearly brought out in a book which Mrs. Bowen wrote out of her long experience with the Juvenile Protective Association, and which was published by Macmillan Company entitled, "Safeguards for City Children at Work and at Play." This book utilized the publications of the Juvenile Protective Association, many of which had been written by Mrs. Bowen herself. Several of these in pamphlet form have [page 7] had a very large circulation, one of them, "The Straight Girl in the Crooked Path," having been published in full in the Sunday edition of a Chicago newspaper, and affording a basis for such comment throughout the city and according to rumor, producing a certain panic in the police department itself. Mrs. Bowen has been for eleven years Vice President of the United Charities of Chicago, greatly interested not only in alleviating poverty, but in discovering that almost invisible line so often crossed by the child whom [poverty] has made a dependent, into the regions of delinquency and crime.
On appointment by the governor, Mrs. Bowen served during the war on the State Council of Defense as the only woman member of that body. She was also elected at the beginning of the war Chairman of the Woman's Committee, Council of National Defense, Illinois Division. There were serving under her, during the war 692,229 women who registered for work in Illinois. This Committee perfected the most complete organization of women ever attempted in Illinois with 7,700 chairmen throughout the State, every village large enough to have a post office being represented. The Woman's Committee was divided into eighteen departments.
Mrs. Bowen in February 1920 was appointed by the United States Department of Justice as Woman Fair Price Commissioner for Illinois; in June, 1920, she received the Degree of Master of Arts from Knox College, Illinois; in April 1922 was appointed by President Harding as official delegate of the United States to the Pan-American Congress of women held in Baltimore. During the three days of this Congress a constant demand for careful information upon child welfare, laws for women and industrial safeguards in the United States with its diversified state laws; she was obliged to give these reports in practically spontaneous speeches. The occasion brought out to the full her unusual gift for making facts and figures alive and illuminating; [page 8] dramatizing statistics as it were, and thus driving home her point as can never be done by mere generalizing, however eloquent. This power has always characterized her public speaking which has been singularly direct and forceful and has placed her in the front ranks of women speakers in the United States.
Mrs. Bowen did valiant service for the cause of Woman Suffrage and for two years served as a member of the Executive Board of the American National Woman's Suffrage Association. She realized however that the cause would not be won until women actually made good in the political life.
Mrs. Bowen has been for eight years out of the [twelve] years of its existence President of the Woman's City Club of Chicago. This club has thirty-four civic committees and has 5,056 women on its membership roll. It was organized during one of the dark periods of municipal corruption in Chicago, and long before women had the vote. It has constantly interested and educated its members in civic affairs, but it has not hesitated to take a hand from time to time, when occasion seemed to require it, in actual civic reform. The Club has been no small factor in changing the method of garbage disposal in the city, in increasing and regulating bathing beaches on the Lake, in defeating bond issues when it seemed likely that the money would be improperly or foolishly spent and in many another situation constantly confronting the voters of Chicago. At one time it made a striking contribution by furnishing a program of municipal activity after an overflow meeting held in the largest auditorium in the City, which rather dramatically rallied together the dispersed and discouraged forces for municipal betterment. In another crisis, as is conceded by the political parties themselves, the Club was a determining factor in the defeat of undesirable candidates for Judges of the Municipal Court, who would [page 9] undoubtedly have placed the courts under political domination. To be President of such a Club requires both courage and unsleeping vigilance, and happily Mrs. Bowen possesses both qualities. She is ready to defend her position with her pen and by spoken word, and often her decision not only influences many club policies but also actual civic situations.
Mrs. Bowen brings to her many undertakings a clear and vigorous mind and in the cause of the helpless and oppressed she shows a tireless devotion which is never affrighted nor dismayed by obstacles. She has become a power for righteousness, not only because of her unnumbered deeds in the field of social service and civic reform, but because of that inner urge which does not allow her to remain indifferent when a public crisis demands vigorous action. Many of her fellow-citizens have come to depend upon the clarity of her mind, the integrity of her purpose and her unfailing energy as among the most valuable moral assets of Chicago. In even the slightest record of Mrs. Bowen's personality it is impossible to overlook her delightful sense of humor which brightens the dreariest situations, and her deep kindness and understanding which enable her to get the point of view of the forlornest young delinquent and to sympathize even with those whom life has beaten into distorted and unlovely forms.
Mrs. Bowen is a member of the Executive Committee of the Woman's Roosevelt Republican Club and a member of the Chicago Woman's Club, the Fortnightly, the Cordon and the Friday Clubs. Of her four children; John de Koven Bowen, educated at Hill School and Yale University, at the outbreak of the war enlisted in the United States Navy and was in active service as a lieutenant throughout the war. He married Elizabeth Winthrop Stevens of New York and has three children. Joseph Tilton Bowen Jr., was educated at Hill School and at the outbreak of the war enlisted in the army and served in France during the war as captain. He married Gwendolyn High of Chicago and has one child. Helen Hadduck [page 10] Bowen is married to William McCormick Blair of Chicago and has four children. Louise de Koven Bowen married to Mason Phelps of Chicago, has one child.
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