Bethenia Angelina Owens-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]

Bethenia A. Owens-Adair
Born
Bethenia Angelina Owens

(1840-02-08)February 8, 1840
Van Buren County, Missouri
DiedSeptember 11, 1926(1926-09-11) (aged 86)
Clatsop County, Oregon
NationalityAmerican
Alma materUniversity of Michigan
Occupationphysician
Spouse(s)LeGrand Henderson Hill
John Adair

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
  1. Ward, Jean M. "Bethenia Owens-Adair (1840–1926)". The Oregon Encyclopedia. Retrieved March 17, 2012.
  2. "Bethenia Angelina Owens-Adair". Find a grave memorial. Retrieved 14 August 2012.
  3. Flora, Stephenie. "Emigrants to Oregon in 1843". oregonpioneers.com.
  4. "Bethenia Owens-Adair (1840–1926)". Oregon Historical Society. Retrieved March 17, 2012.
  5. 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.
  6. Abrahams, Harold J. (1966). Extinct medical schools of nineteenth-century Philadelphia. Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press. p. 317. OCLC 928734.
  7. 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)
  8. Cohen, Adam (2016). Imbecile: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck. New York, NY: Penguin. p. 70. ISBN 9781594204180.
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