Finding Aid

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Biographical Note

The fourteenth president of the University of Iowa, Howard Rothmann Bowen was born in Spokane, Washington, on October 27, 1908. He 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. He and his wife, Lois, raised two children.

Mr. 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 the University 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. In 1945, 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. Howard Bowen died on December 22, 1989.

 

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Related Materials

Bowen, Howard R. Academic Recollections. Washington, D.C.: American Association for Higher Education and American Council on Education, 1988. 155 pp.

Bowen, Howard R. "Oral History Interview." University of Iowa Oral History Project, 29. 49 pp. 1977.

Solberg, Winton U., and Robert W. Tomilson. "Academic McCarthyism and Keynesian Economics: The Bowen Controversy at the University of Illinois." History of Political Economy 29 (spring 1997): 55-81, notes. Howard R. Bowen and George D. Stoddard.

Bowen was also the author of numerous articles and monographs pertaining to economics.

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Box Contents List

Since the Walter Jessup administration in 1916, the President's Office has maintained an index of Presidential Correspondence in the form of a Kardex file to which name and subject entries are posted. A new alphabetical sequence is begun approximately each fiscal year. These cards files have been photocopied and a bound copy is available in the University Archives; these primary files are not yet available on-line. They are, clearly, essential to tracing correspondence on specific subjects.

The Kardex entries consist of the name or subject and reference to a folder number (which may change from year to year for a particular subject although in a short span of years it often remains the same). To find the current physical location of the referenced folder, readers must consult the photocopied Kardex entries, note the number of any folder they wish to review, and then determine from the list which follows the number of the storage box in which the folder has been placed. Please note that folder numbers are not necessarily sequential in Archives holdings, and some folders may have been withdrawn from the sequence by the Office of the President.

Box / Folder number

1964 -- 1965

1 / 1 -- 2D (unnumbered folders, "Old Gold Development Fund Materials", "UI Foundation")

2 / D -- 4A

3 / 4B -- 4O

4 / 4P -- 6

5 / 6 -- 10

6 / 11 -- 23

7 / 24 -- 27C (unnnumbered folder, "Student Housing")

8 / 28 -- 35

9 / 36 -- 46 (unnumbered folder, "Spriestersbach, Materials regarding")

10 / 47 -- 55

11 / 56 -- 6OQ (unnumbered folder, "Zuberi File")

12 / 60R -- 64

13 / 65 -- 74

14 / 75 -- 79

15 / 80 -- 80E

16 / 80F -- 80Q

17 / 81 -- 84 (unnumbered folder, "SUI -- Congratulations and Personal")

18 / 85 -- 97B

19 / 98 -- 105C (unnumbered folder, "National Committee on Technology")

20 / 105D -- 112

 

1965 -- 1966

21 / 1 -- 3

22 / 4 -- 4N

23 / 4P -- 5B

24 / 6, letters to State Board of Regents

25 / 6 -- 6B

26 / 6B -- 16

27 / 17 -- 25

28 / 27 -- 31

29 / 32 -- 43

30 / 43 -- 47

31 / 48 -- 51 (unnumbered folder, "Measurement Research Center")

32 / 52 -- 60M

33 / 60N -- 61A

34 / 61B -- 61F

35 / 62 -- 70

36 / 71 -- 80B

37 / 80E -- 82

38 / 84 -- 93

39 / 93 -- 104

40 / 105 -- 112

 

1966 -- 1967

41 / 1A -- 4A

42 / 4B -- 4I

43 / 4J -- 5B

44 / 6 -- 9B

45 / 10 -- 25

46 / 25 -- 28

47 / 29 -- 40

48 / 41 -- 47

49 / 48 -- 54

50 / 55 -- 60R

51 / 60S -- 62

52 / 63 -- 69

53 / 69 -- 79

54 / 80A -- 85R

55 / 87 -- 93B

56 / 94 -- 105H

57 / 106, 108, 110w, 111, remodeling projects

 

1967 -- 1968

58 / 1 -- 4B

59 / 4B2 -- 4P

60 / 4D -- 5

61 / 6 -- 6A1

62 / 6A1 -- 20

63 / 21 -- 29

64 / 29 -- 36A

65 / 38 -- 46

66 / 47 -- 51A

67 / 51B -- 60P2

68 / 60P3 -- 65

69 / 65 -- 76

70 / 76 -- 80F; Personnel matters, civil service, etc.

71 / 80G -- 90

72 / 91 -- 93B

73 / 94 -- 105C

74 / 105D -- 112; 200

 

1968 -- 1969

75 / 1 -- 4

76 / 4A -- 4P

77 / 4Q -- 6

78 / 6A -- 9

79 / 9 -- 20

80 / 21 -- 28 (unnumbered folder, "Haisman Case")

81 / 29 -- 38H

82 / 39 -- 43

83 / 44 -- 48D; Dongguk University

84 / 48E -- 60M

85 / 60N -- 60Z11

86 / 62 -- 65J

87 / 65K -- 74

88 / 76 -- 80E

89 / 80E -- 82

90 / 84 -- 93A

91 / 93B -- 105H

92 / 106 -- 113

 

Addendum

1-7 / Speeches

8 / Inauguration, 1964

9 / Inauguration, news releases

10-11 / University News Service Bowen folders

12 / Letters to Regents, 1964-64

13 / Letters to Regents, 1965-67

14 / Letters to Regents, 1967-69

15 / Correspondence, 1969-72

16 / Correspondence, 1973-74

17 / Commissions and Studies

18 / Publications, Higher Education

19 / Publications, 1970-79

20 / Publications, Iowa, Small Business, Analyses of Current Business Conditions, Economics of Health, Technology

21 / Publications, Social and General Economics, Business and Society, Taxation and Public Finance, Thailand (2 photographs)

22 / Notes, Humanistic

23 / Resignation

24 / Statements and Press Clippings

25 / Inauguration, Correspondence with Office of Public Information

26 / "University Report 1968", "University Report 1969", WMT - TV