Jennie McCowen

In 1880, McCowen resigned from her role at the State Hospital for the Insane and moved to Davenport, Iowa, where she began specializing in nervous diseases and diseases of women. The same year, she became an attending physician at the Cook Home for Aged Women. In 1892, McCowen became chief of staff of the Woman's Hospital in Davenport, and served on the adjunct staff of Mercy Hospital from 1893 to 1894. In 1894, she became president of the medical board of the Iowa State Nursery of the Children's Home Society, located in Davenport.[1] McCowen ran the Hadlai Heights Women's Hospital with Eliza "Lile" Bickford.[3]

At the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, McCowen represented Iowa in the Congress on Woman's Progress, in May; delivered an address on “Progress in Child-Saving Work” in the Congress on Social and Moral Reform, in June; she spoke on “Prevention of Impurity among Children”, in August; and was a member of the executive committee on the International Congress of Medical Jurisprudence. She also spoke on “The Postal Rights of the Insane” in the same month. At the World's Congress on Geology, she read a paper on “Crinoids,” illustrated with specimens from the Davenport Academy of Sciences, which address attracted much attention and a copy of it was requested by the British Museum, London, and Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland. At the congresses in the Woman's Building, in October, she spoke upon “The Child Problem of To-day.” McCowen was also a member of the jury of awards of the World's Columbian Exposition, in the department of medical and surgical appliances, artificial limbs, sanitary exhibits, and others.[4]

McCowen was a Scott County, Iowa Medical Society member, serving as its secretary from 1880 to 1882, president from 1883 to 1884, and treasurer beginning in 1885. She was also a member of the Iowa and Illinois District Medical Society, the Iowa State Medical Society, the American Medical Association, the Pan-American Medical Congress, and the Iowa Public Health Association. She became the third woman to be elected a member of the Medico-Legal Society of New York in 1885, and became vice president of the society in 1888; was a vice president of the International Congress of Medical Jurisprudence, New York, 1889; represented the state of Iowa at the annual meetings of the National Conference of Charities and Corrections since 1882, and was secretary for Iowa, 1882–92; was a member of the Davenport Academy of Natural Sciences, twice president, 1889–90,[5] and a member of its publication committee beginning in 1890; of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; of the National Science Club; and of the American Association for the Extension of University Teaching. In 1889, she was made a fellow of the Society of Science, Letters, and Art.[1]

McCowen wrote for various publications as follows: “Prevention of Insanity"; “Relations and Duties of the General Profession toward Insanity"; “Psychiatry in Iowa"; “Suicide"; “Plan for State Care of Chronic Insane", which was, by request of the Iowa State Medical Society, embodied in a memorial to the legislature; “Insanity in Women"; “Inebriety: Is It a Disease?”; “Heredity"; “Women Physicians in Hospitals for Insane"; “Classification of Mental Diseases as a Basis of International Statistics"; as well as “Shinbone Alley", an appeal for preventive work among children. She was also the author of papers on “Vis Medicatrix Naturae"; “Puerperal Fever"; “Heredity and Intemperance"; “Hospital Treatment for Insane Women"; “Physiology and Hygiene of Womanhood", (a course of six lectures to women, 1865) “Dr. Johnson: a Psychological Study"; “Women's Work in Iowa"; “The Relations of Intemperance to Insanity"; “Relations of Intemperance to Heredity"; “Inebriety in Women", in two series; “Contributions to the Study of Epilepsy"; “The Use and Abuse of Narcotics"; “Heredity in Its Relation to Charity Work"; “Overcoming Evil Inheritance"; “The Press as a Factor in Reformatory Movements"; “Legal Protection For Girls"; “Earthquakes"; “The Relation of Academies of Science to the Community"; “Early History of the Iowa Orphan's Home"; “Occupations and Amusements for Insane Women"; “Provision for Feeble-Minded Children"; "Suicide in Its Relation to Mental Unsoundness"; “Child-Saving Work in the United States"; “Child-Saving Work in Foreign Fields", a series of twelve papers; "The Child and the State"; “The Utility of State Boards of Charity"; “Charity Organization in Cities"; “Health Talks", being a series of six annual talks to working girls and women of Davenport, under the auspices of the Lend-a-Hand Club, 1888–94; and “Emergency Lectures", two series of five lectures each to women on accidents or “What to Do Until the Doctor Comes", 1890.[4]

McCowen was a collaborator in obstetrics of the Iowa Medical Journal, beginning April 1, 1895, and was associate editor of the Iowa State Medical Recorder, 1886–90.[4] By 1905, she served as State Medicine editor of the Woman's Medical Journal.[2]

• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Davenport Academy of Sciences (1897). Proceedings of the Davenport Academy of Sciences. Vol. 6–8 (Public domain ed.). The Academy.
• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Watson, Irving Allison (1896). Physicians and Surgeons of America: (Illustrated). A Collection of Biographical Sketches of the Regular Medical Profession (Public domain ed.). Republican Press Association.
• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Woman's Medical Journal (1905). The Woman's Medical Journal. Vol. 15 (Public domain ed.). Recorder Publishing Company.

• Turner, Jonathan (2016). A Brief History of Bucktown: Davenport's Infamous District Transformed. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 978-1-62619-909-5.