Louis deKoven Bowen
1859-1953
Louise deKoven Bowen was a philanthropist, social reformer, and suffragist who was part of a
generation of powerful women who affected the nation. She was the major benefactor of HullHouse, a vital link among many civic and social organizations in Chicago, and an effective
leader of many organizations working towards child welfare and reform.
Louise deKoven Bowen was born February 26, 1859 in Chicago, Illinois. She was the only child
of Helen Hadduck and John deKoven, a successful banker. Her grandfather was Edward Hiram
Hadduck, an investor who became wealthy with the development of Chicago’s Loop.
Louise enjoyed the privileges accorded Chicago’s wealthy and attended the prestigious Dearborn
Seminary, graduating at the age of sixteen. Around that time she appealed to her pastor at St.
James Episcopal Cathedral for appropriate social service work, which he reluctantly offered her
in the Sunday school class for “bad boys.”1 Louise took control of the class, quickly established
order and discipline, and over the following eleven years established the Huron Street Club, one
of the first boys’ clubhouses in Chicago.
Louise married Chicago businessman Joseph Tilton Bowen on June 1, 1886. The Bowens had
four children: John deKoven, Joseph Tilton Jr., Helen Hadduck, and Louise deKoven. In 1893
Jane Addams asked Louise to help with the Hull House Woman’s Club. Under Louise’s
guidance for seventeen years, the club grew to a membership of over 2,000.
2
Louise continued her involvement in social service activities while affiliated with Hull-House.
The most significant of these activities was her participation in the child-saving movement, a
Progressive-era crusade to protect children from the physical and moral dangers of an industrial
and urban society. 2 In 1899 Louise was one of the group of Club Women who encouraged Cook
County to establish the first juvenile court in the United States. This group was then organized
as the Juvenile Court Committee. A year later Louise succeeded Julia Lathrop as president and
helped the Committee to develop and expand. In 1907 the Court Committee reorganized itself as
3
the Juvenile Protective Association. Louise held the position of president for over thirty-five
years. The association investigated complaints and lobbied for new courts and measures to
combat prostitution. This group also fought to improve working conditions for women, and to
clean up dance halls and other areas where children gathered. Louise wrote many pamphlets
outlining the association’s work, including The Welfare of Children, The Department Store Girl,
and The Straight Girl on the Crooked Path. In The Colored People of Chicago published in
1913, Louise conducted the first study of the living conditions of African Americans in Chicago.
Safeguards for City Youth at Work and at Play, written in 1914, explains her experiences with
the Juvenile Protective Association.
Louise remained actively involved in social and civic reform programs throughout her life. She
held over thirty official leadership positions including founding member and president of the
Women’s City Club in Chicago, vice president of the United Charities of Chicago, and auditor of
the National American Women’s Suffrage Association.3 She also remained dedicated to HullHouse. She personally funded the construction of two settlement buildings, the Women’s Club
and the Boy’s Club, and donated a seventy-two acre summer campsite in memory of her husband
who died in 1911.4
4
Louise was given many awards for her many years of service as advisor and financial contributor
to hospitals and health organizations. One award she received was the Citizen-fellow of the
Chicago Institute of Medicine in 1939. Also, in 1941, Louise was the first woman to receive the
Gold Medal for Distinguished Service by the Rotary Club of Chicago. She suffered a stroke in
October 1953, and died a month later on November 9.
1
Barbara Sicherman and Carol Hurd Green, Notable American Women: The Modern Period (Cambridge, MA:
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1980), 99.
2
John Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, American National Biography, v. 3 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999),
281.
5
3
4
Ibid., 282.
Sicherman, Notable American Women, 100.
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