Straight Girl on the Crooked Path, The.
Bowen, Louise de Koven. The Straight Girl on the Crooked Path. A true story. Issued by The Juvenile Protective Association of Chicago. Chicago: The Hildmann Ptg. Co., 1916.
8vo.; grey printed wrappers, stapled; with folded insert of first and last page; interior fresh and bright, in excellent condition.
First edition. The protagonist of Bowen’s cautionary tale is Mabel Wheeler, a small town girl who moves to Chicago to find work as a cabaret singer and is shocked by the tawdry lifestyle and corruption she encounters. Despite pressures put on her by club owners, Mabel maintains her virtue and stays away from alcohol and men, and concludes her tale to Bowen by saying,
I wish it could be printed—not that I suppose it is very different from the kind of life other girls have to live, but perhaps if some girl could read it who is in the position I was and became discouraged as I did, she would take heart and keep decent, thinking it would come out all right in the end as it has for me. (p. 20)
OCLC locates three copies.
Louise de Koven Bowen (1859-1952) devoted her life to social reform and served as the Treasurer of Hull House for several years. Most notably, she acted as President of the Juvenile Protective Association (JPA) for 35 years and was instrumental in establishing the juvenile court system in Chicago. In 1916, Bowen led a suffrage march at the Republican National Convention in Chicago that drew 5,000 women. She published a number of labor studies and books throughout her lifetime, and her memoir, Growing Up With a City (New York: The MacMillan Co., 1926), is still in print.
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