Bethenia Angelina Owens-Adair
Bethenia A. Owens-Adair | |
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Born | Bethenia Angelina Owens February 8, 1840 Van Buren County, Missouri |
Died | September 11, 1926 Clatsop County, Oregon | (aged 86)
Nationality | American |
Alma mater | University of Michigan |
Occupation | physician |
Spouse(s) | LeGrand Henderson Hill John Adair |
Bethenia Angelina Owens-Adair (February 8, 1840 – September 11, 1926) was an American social reformer, advocate for eugenics, and one of the first female physicians in Oregon.[1][2]
Biography[]
Bethenia Owens was born on February 8, 1840, in Van Buren County, Missouri.[1] She was the third of eleven children born to Tom and Sarah Damron Owens.[1] The family traveled to the Oregon Country via the Oregon Trail in 1843 with the Jesse Applegate wagon train.[1][3] The family settled in the Clatsop Plains and later moved to Roseburg in the Umpqua Valley.[1][4]
At the age of 14, Owens married LeGrand Henderson Hill, one of her father's farmhands.[4][5] Their son George was born when Owens was 16.[1] She and Hill moved to Yreka, California so Hill could join the California Gold Rush.[5] She left Hill, and graduated from the Eclectic Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1874 (writing her thesis on Metritis)[6] and the University of Michigan.[1]
She practiced medicine in Roseburg, Portland, and Clatsop County, Oregon, and in Yakima, Washington.[1]
She married Col. John Adair, in 1884. They divorced in 1907.[1]
She worked in the temperance movement. Owens also promoted the eugenics movement.[7] In 1909, she supported a bill to sterilize criminals, epileptics, the insane, and the feebleminded. The bill passed the Oregon legislature but the governor refused to sign it into law. Eight years later the bill became law. A similar bill became law in Washington state, in 1909, largely due to her efforts. Owens was called the "pioneer advocate" of the Pacific Northwest eugenic sterilization movement.[8]
She died on September 11, 1926, in Clatsop County.[1]
Further reading[]
- Owens-Adair, Bethenia Angelina (1906). Dr. Owens-Adair: Some of her Life Experiences.
- Woman Doctor Of The West (1960) By: Helen Markley Miller Library of Congress Catalog Card No 60-7054
References[]
- ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j Ward, Jean M. "Bethenia Owens-Adair (1840–1926)". The Oregon Encyclopedia. Retrieved March 17, 2012.
- ^ "Bethenia Angelina Owens-Adair". Find a grave memorial. Retrieved 14 August 2012.
- ^ Flora, Stephenie. "Emigrants to Oregon in 1843". oregonpioneers.com.
- ^ Jump up to: a b "Bethenia Owens-Adair (1840–1926)". Oregon Historical Society. Retrieved March 17, 2012.
- ^ Jump up to: a b Guardino, M. Constance, III; Rev. Marilyn A. Riedel (August 2010). "Sovereigns of Themselves: A Liberating History of Oregon and Its Coast, Volume I". Archived from the original on February 5, 2012. Retrieved March 17, 2012.
- ^ Abrahams, Harold J. (1966). Extinct medical schools of nineteenth-century Philadelphia. Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press. p. 317. OCLC 928734.
- ^ James, ed., Edward T. (1971). Notable American Women 1607–1950: A Biographical Dictionary (I ed.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. p. 659. ISBN 9780674627345.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
- ^ Cohen, Adam (2016). Imbecile: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck. New York, NY: Penguin. p. 70. ISBN 9781594204180.
External links[]
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Bethenia Angelina Owens-Adair. |
- Bethenia Owens-Adair - (1840-1926) in the Oregon Encyclopedia
- November 20, 1873, letter from Jesse Applegate to Bethenia Owens-Adair from the Oregon Historical Society
- Dr. Owens-Adair on Eugenics from the Oregon State Hospital
- Works by or about Bethenia Angelina Owens-Adair at Internet Archive
- It Happened Here column in the Yakima Herald 2021
- Physicians from Oregon
- People from Clatsop County, Oregon
- People from Roseburg, Oregon
- 1840 births
- 1926 deaths
- University of Michigan alumni
- American social reformers
- People from Yreka, California
- People from Cass County, Missouri
- 19th-century American physicians
- 20th-century American physicians
- Physicians from California
- Physicians from Missouri
- 20th-century American women physicians
- 19th-century American women physicians