“In my sixteen years of experience I have come across more suffering than ever is seen by any man detective,” Marie Owens to the Chicago Tribune, 1906.
In a city where Miss O’Leary’s myth still lives in the folklore, it’s the real story of one working-class Irish Catholic woman that shaped Chicago for the better. For nearly a century the historic work of Detective Sergeant Marie Owens was lost to history. Thanks to the research work of Rick Barrett, the historic career of Owens was brought to light for modern audiences. The following is a passage from the Chicago Tribune on August 22, 2010, showcasing Barrett’s findings:
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“A tall, solidly built woman with long, dark hair, Owens was the daughter of Irish famine immigrants and grew up in the crowded tenements of Ottawa, Canada. In her 20s, she moved with her husband, Thomas, to Chicago, no doubt looking for a better life. But in February 1888, Thomas died of typhoid fever, one of several illnesses then plaguing the city.
Left to raise five children, Owens landed a job in 1889 with the city health department, working as one of five female factory inspectors who enforced child-labor and compulsory education laws.
At the time, public outrage was growing over sweatshop conditions in factories across the city. But the inspectors’ powers were limited; they couldn’t enter buildings without a warrant. As pressure mounted on public officials to step up enforcement of child labor laws, Owens was transferred to the Police Department in 1891. She was given powers of arrest, the title of detective sergeant and a police star.”
“I like to do police work,” Owens told the Tribune in 1906. “It gives me a chance to help women and children who need help.””
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Owens’ story reflects the changing city around her. Chicago was a major hub of industrialization and immigration which brought an influx of new ideas that would have directly impacted Owens and her work. Namely, rising feminism through women’s suffrage movements led by Frances Willard and Ida B. Wells; ethnic pride, as evidenced by Owens naming her son after Irish nationalist Charles Stewart Parnell; and the swelling labor movement she directly supported by defending the rights of workers, mainly impoverished children unprotected from inhumane working conditions.
Owens retired in 1923, after a career that saw women earn the right to vote in 1920, and Illinois pass Progressive-era children’s rights, making it illegal for children under 14 to work for wages by 1900. The scourge of child labor exploitation in textile mills and other industrial manufacturing only increased nation-wide, and it wasn’t until 1938, a decade after Owens passed away, that the Fair Labor Standard Act provided federal protections for children.
Now resting in Evanston’s Calvary Cemetery, Marie Owens’ story is not only historic in its achievements for women, but how her spirit reflected a time where leaders like her changed Chicago, and in turn the world.
(Photo Courtesy Chicago Tribune)
