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Posted March 5, 2007
The first University of Iowa alumnus to become its president, John G. Bowman was 33 when he became president of the University of Iowa giving him the distinction of being the youngest president in the school’s history. He was also the first Iowa native and the first alumnus to lead the school.
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John G. Bowman, innovative educator
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As president of the school, he oversaw the formations of the colleges of Education and Fine Arts. He was a firm believer in the development of an Extension Division at the school. But despite all his distinctions, it wasn’t until he left the school that he gained a national reputation for iron-fisted leadership and big dreams. His greatest achievement, construction of the Cathedral of Learning at the University of Learning, remains one of the largest buildings of its kind in the world.

Bowman, a Davenport native, was born in 1877. He received his Bachelor’s Degree in 1899, his Master’s Degree in 1904 as well as an honorary doctorate in 1934. He married Florence Ridgway Berry in 1908, and they had two children.

As a boy, Bowman was shy and introspective. When he was seven, he once told an interviewer, he promised himself that one day, “I would be a poet. I
would always feel beautiful inside and be large and kind and beneficial and be honored and do good."

He moved to Columbia University to teach English after graduating from the University of Iowa.. While there, he became associated with Andrew Carnegie and became secretary of the Carnegie Foundation. In 1911, at age 34, he was named president of the University of Iowa and vowed to make the school the “Athens of the West.” But he had trouble getting along with the school’s trustees and quit in 1913 to head the American College of Surgeons, a society charged with improving hospitals and healthcare.

One day, while delivering a speech to a group of Pittsburgh surgeons he caught the attention of a trustee at the University of Pittsburgh and was named its chancellor.

In 1921 he moved to the University of Pittsburgh where he remained until 1947.

It was while he was at the University of Pittsburgh that Bowman conceived of and developed the 42-second Cathedral of Learning, the second largest school building in the world. When it was finished in 1929 it was the tallest building in the world. According to lore at the University of Pittsburgh, Bowman moved to the city in 1921 to become the tenth chancellor of the university. As he entered the city, he asked a streetcar driver to take him to the University. When that driver had no idea what he was talking about, Bowman decided he had to do something to make sure the University made an impression on the city. He then began to envision the Cathedral of Learning.

Philadelphian Charles Klauder, a prominent architect, was hired to design the tower, a process that took two years to finish; the tower itself took 16 years to build. The structure gave Pittsburgh a international reputation but raised the hackles of members of the faculty who believed the money could be better spent.
During his tenure at Pittsburgh Bowman was the highest paid university president in the country, earning $31,500, another fact that irritated the faculty.

At the school, he irritated the staff by firing teachers he deemed to be too liberal; during his tenure 25 were terminated and another 59 quit. In fact, his highhandedness so infuriated the American Association of University Professors that they blacklisted the school. Bowman was said to be unfazed. “What of it?” he snapped at a reporter when asked about it. He also seemed to careless about an investigation by the Pennsylvania legislature who, in 1915, threatened to cut off sate aid to the school. (A compromise bill changed the make-up of Pitt’s trustees so that 15 out of 33 members of the board were elected by alumni.)

But the last straw for Bowman was a long-running, under-the-radar feud with Pitt Football Coach John Bain Sutherland, who replaced legendary coach Gary S. “Pop” Warner in 1924. The Pitt program was one of the best in the country, winning national championships in 1936 and 1937, and when the Bowman announced in 1938 that he wanted to deemphasize the sport, Sutherland resigned.

Finally, Bowman’s champions on the board – legends like Andrew W. Mellon, Howard Heinz and Westinghouse chairman Andrew Wells Robertson – could no longer ignore the football crazy alumni and Bowman was fired.

He died on December 2, 1962, at age 85.

John G. Bowman