Isaiah Bowman

Isaiah Bowman (born December 26, 1878 in Waterloo , Ontario , † January 6, 1950 in Baltimore , Maryland ) was an American geographer of Canadian origin. He served as director of the American Geographical Society for 20 years and as president of Johns Hopkins University for 13 years . In addition, he worked as a long-time advisor to the US government and chaired other professional societies and scientific councils.

Career

Isaiah Bowman was born in 1878 in Waterloo, Canada, to a farmer, before moving with his family to a farm in St. Clair County , Michigan , when he was just a few weeks old . There Bowman grew up and received his school education before teaching for four years. At the age of 22 he decided to study geography , which he did over the next five years at the Ferris Institute , the State Normal College at Ypsilanti (now Eastern Michigan University ) and Harvard University , where he was among the students of William Morris Davis owned, graduated. Harvard gave Bowman in 1905 the Bachelor of Science before the Yale University changed and there in 1909 with a thesis on the physical geography of the Andes ( "The physiography of the Central Andes") for Ph.D. received his doctorate. He then served as an assistant professor at Yale until 1915, during which time he undertook three expeditions to South America, among others at the side of Hiram Bingham .

In 1915, Bowman was named the first director of the American Geographical Society (AGS), a position created by then President Archer Milton Huntington and intended primarily for administrative duties. Bowman directed the fortunes of the AGS for the next 20 years, during which he mainly operated its expansion as a scientific organization. For example, the AGS journal was restructured and henceforth published as a Geographical Review (previously "Bulletin of the American Geographical Society"). At the same time, he worked several times as an advisor to the US government, for example at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 and as chairman of the National Research Council in the 1930s . He was also President of the Association of American Geographers from 1931 to 1932 and President of the International Geographical Union from 1931 to 1934 .

In 1935 Bowman left the AGS and was named fifth president of Johns Hopkins University to succeed Joseph Sweetman Ames . In the years that followed, he ensured that the university's financial situation, which had been strained by the Great Depression , stabilized again. He also continued to serve as a government advisor, attending the Dumbarton Oaks Conference and the San Francisco Conference. In 1943 he was the American Association for the Advancement of Science and in 1944 as successor to Louis Charles Karpinski of the History of Science Society , before he was retired from Johns Hopkins University in 1948 . His successor as president of the university was Detlev Wulf Bronk .

Isaiah Bowman died on January 6, 1950 in Baltimore at the age of 71.

Scientific focus

Bowman's main focus during his life was the physical geography of the United States and South America, with the Peruvian Andes being a focus of his work during his three expeditions . Later he dealt - due to his consultancy work for the US government - with political and human geography and published articles on international relations or questions of settlement . He was also involved in the publication of several specialist journals.

Bowman published a total of 17 books and over 150 specialist articles.

Honors

Bowman was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1916 , the American Philosophical Society in 1923, and the National Academy of Sciences in 1930 . In 1936 he was featured on the cover of TIME Magazine . In 1941 he received the Patron's Medal from the British Royal Geographical Society in recognition of his services to geography. In addition, the University of Oxford awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1948 . The Bowman Peninsula , the Bowman Coast , the Bowman Glacier and Bowman Island , all of which are located in Antarctica, were named after him . In addition, the AGS launched the “Bowman Expeditions” in his honor.

anti-Semitism

Bowman was an anti-Semite , which was particularly evident during his tenure as President of Johns Hopkins University. In 1942 he introduced a quota at the university that was supposed to limit the proportion of Jewish students, and justified this with the statement, among other things, that Jews did not come to Hopkins to make the world a better place, but to earn money and a non- Jewish women to marry (original quote: "Jews don't come to Hopkins to make the world better or anything like that. They came for two things: to make money and to marry non-Jewish women."). He also blocked the hiring or career advancement of Jewish scholars at the university, for example James Franck , Simon Smith Kuznets , Tracy M. Sonneborn , Richard Hofstadter and Eric F. Goldman .

literature

• John K. Wright, George F. Carter: Isaiah Bowman 1878–1950. National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoirs, No. 33, 1959 (freely available as a PDF version , 1.2 MB).

Web links

• List of publications on Johns Hopkins University pages

Individual evidence

1. ^ Gladys M. Wrigley: Isaiah Bowman. In: Geographical Review, Vol. 41, No. 1, 1951, pp. 57-65.
2. ↑ Book of Members 1780 – present, Chapter B. (PDF; 1.2 MB) In: American Academy of Arts and Sciences (amacad.org). Retrieved August 2, 2017 . 
3. ^ Member History: Isaiah Bowman. American Philosophical Society, accessed May 16, 2018 . 
4. ↑ TIME Magazine Cover: Isaiah Bowman - Mar. 23, 1936. time.com, accessed August 2, 2017 . 
5. ^ Wrigley, p. 49.
6. ^ Bowman Expeditions. americangeo.org, accessed August 3, 2017 . 
7. ^ Neil Smith : American Empire: Roosevelt's Geographer and the Prelude to Globalization. University of California Press, 2002, p. 247.
8. ^ Jason Kalman: Dark Places Around the University: The Johns Hopkins University Admissions Quota and the Jewish Community, 1945-1951. In: Hebrew Union College Annual, Vol. 81, 2010, pp. 243-244.