Mary Jean Bowman

Mary Jean Bowman was born in New York City October 17, 1908. She received her B.A. degree in 1930 from Vassar (Phi Beta Kappa); an M.A. degree in 1932 from Radcliffe; and the Ph.D. degree in 1938 from Harvard/Radcliffe. Dr. Bowman is currently Professor Emeritus of Economics and Education at the University of Chicago.

Ms. Bowman spent some of her earlier years on social case work and research at the Massachusetts Women's State Prison. During 1935-36 she was director of the Northwest Central Region Consumer Purchases Study for the USDA. In the summer of 1941 she taught at the University of Minnesota. From 1936 to 1943 she was involved in teaching and research on housing and marketing at Iowa State College; 1945-46 she was a price economist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics working on International Comparisons of levels of living; 1948-49 she taught at the University of California-Berkeley; 1954-55 she traveled in Europe for the Social Science Research Council Committee on Business Enterprise Research; 1955-56 she was a Fulbright Scholar in Sweden; and 1957-58 she worked for Resources for the Future as a contract researcher.

Dr. Bowman joined the faculty at the University of Chicago in 1958, and in 1969 became a professor of economics and of education. Mary Jean Bowman received a medal for distinguished service from the Teachers College at Columbia University. The citation read:

"Economist, educator, respected adviser to governments and international agencies, with combined technical expertise of the first order, with unfailing respect and compassion for individuals equally at home, and admired in university lecture halls and government chambers, in the farming fields of Japan and Tanzania, and in the mountains of Kentucky, you have conducted authoritative and widely acclaimed investigations into the role of education in the development of nations."

7/1/96

Paver Inscription:

"Economics
Elizabeth Hoyt
Margaret Reid
Mary Jean Bowman
Dorothy Brady"