Dr. Bowman was born in Topeka, Kansas, and received his A.B. (1909) from Washburn College (Topeka) and his M.D. (1913) from the University of California Medical School. He interned at the Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles and the Seton and Roosevelt Hospitals in New York, and (1915–21)), he served at the Bloomingdale (NY) Hospital with a two-year interruption to serve in the U.S. Army (1917–19) during WWI.
Dr. Bowman served as Chief Medical Officer at the Boston Psychopathic Hospital and taught at Harvard and Boston Medical Schools. In 1935, he became Director of the Division of Psychiatry at Bellevue Hospital and Professor of Psychiatry at the NY University College of Medicine. In 1941, he became director of the Langley Porter Clinic and professor of psychiatry at the University of California.
During WWII, he was a commissioned Lt. Commander in the U.S. Naval Reserve but was not called to active service. Dr. Bowman was Director of Mental Health for the State of Alaska and Superintendent of the Alaska Psychiatric Institute (1964–67).
Dr. Bowman served professorships at Harvard (1921–36), New York University (1936–41), and the University of California (1941–56). He served on the Advisory Council, USPHS (1947–50), the WHO in China (1947), and the U.S. Armed Forces and VA after 1956. He was a director of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (1942–46) and again (1950–51). He received the Salmon Medal from the New York Academy of Medicine (1968) and the Welcome Silver Medal in 1920; honorary degrees from Washburn College and the University of California. Dr. Bowman’s book, Personal Problems of Men and Women, was published in four countries. He contributed almost 200 papers to the psychiatric literature.
Dr. Bowman served as President of the American Psychiatric Association (1944–46), serving for two years due to the cancellation of the annual meeting during WWII.