Howard Rothmann Bowen (1964-1969)
Oil on canvas by James Lechay, c. 1964
A distinguished economist, educator, and administrator, Howard R. Bowen received his B.A. degree from the State College of Washington in 1929, and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Iowa in 1933 and 1935, respectively.
Bowen held a variety of academic and government positions before assuming the University presidency in 1964. From 1935 until 1942, he was a member of the faculty of Iowa’s College of Commerce. During World War II, he was employed by the U.S. Department of Commerce and served as chief economist for the U.S. House Ways and Means and Senate Finance committees. In1945, he joined Irving Trust in New York as an economist.
From 1947 until 1952, he was a member of the faculty of the University of Illinois and served on the Williams College faculty in Massachusetts from 1952 until 1955. He returned to Iowa that year to become president of Grinnell College, a post he held until 1964, when he was named University of Iowa president. In 1969, he joined the Claremont Graduate School in California as a member of the economics faculty, serving as the school’s president and chancellor from 1970 to 1974. At the time of his death he was a professor emeritus at Claremont.
Bowen was born in Spokane, Washington, on October 27, 1908. He and his wife, Lois, had two children. He died on December 22, 1989, at age 81.
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- Howard and Lois Bowen, Presidential Portrait Photographs Collection, University of Iowa Archives.
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- Margaret Walker, Iowa Writers’ Workshop, 1966, F.W. Kent Collection, University of Iowa Archives.
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- Robert Coover (left), Mario Picchi, Mani Sankar Mukherji, Willam Murray, and Wilfrido Nolledo, Iowa Writers’ Workshop, November 8, 1967, F.W. Kent Collection, University of Iowa Archives.