Isaiah Bowman

Isaiah Bowman (1878-1950), Canadian-born American geographer, born in Waterloo, Ontario. Educated at Harvard and Yale universities, he taught geography at Yale from 1905 to 1915, when he resigned to become director of the American Geographical Society. In this capacity he initiated many projects, including the preparation of a map of the Western hemisphere south of the United States on a scale of 1 to 1 million, an undertaking that required more than 20 years to complete. Bowman also served as the chief territorial adviser to President Woodrow Wilson at the Paris Peace Conference following World War I, winning wide recognition as an authority on political geography. He was president of Johns Hopkins University from 1935 to 1948. During World War II he served on many governmental advisory committees. Bowman's numerous writings include Forest Physiography (1911), South America (1915), and The New World: Problems in Political Geography (1921).