Isaiah Bowman, fifth president of the Johns Hopkins University and geographer, was born in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, December 26, 1878, the third of eight children of Samuel Cressman and Emily Shantz Bowman. Shortly after his birth his parents moved to Michigan. He graduated the State Normal College in Ypsilanti, Michigan in 1902 and Harvard University (B.S.) In 1905. He was instructor in geography at the State Normal College (1903-1904); assistant in Physiography, Harvard (1904-1905); and instructor in geography at Yale University where he received the Ph.D. degree in 1909. He was special lecturer in geography at Wesleyan University (1907-1909); the University of Chicago (1908); and assistant professor of geography, Yale, (1909-1915). His first important field work was as leader of the Yale South American geographical expedition in 1907. He was geographer and geologist of the Yale Peruvian expedition in 1911, and in 1913 he was leader of an expedition to the Central Andes under the auspices of the American Geographical Society of New York.

In 1915 Isaiah Bowman resigned his position at Yale to become Director of the American Geographical Society where he remained for 20 years. During his administration he made the American Geographical Society one of the leading organizations of its kind. Its chief publication, The Geographical Review, became under his direction one of the country's foremost scientific journals. In 1920 the Society undertook the preparation of a map of Latin America on a scale of 1:1,000,000 called the Amillionth map. This huge project required 20 years to complete. Another outstanding work with which Bowman was associated was the atlas of the historical geography of the United States, a monumental work that required 24 years of preparation. It was produced by the American Geographical Society uner Bowman's supervision, in association with the Carnegie Institution.

In 1919 Bowman accompanied President Woodrow Wilson to Paris as chief territorial specialist to the American Commission to Negotiate Peace and served on various territorial commissions appointed by the Conference. In addition he was physiographer to the United States Department of Justice in the Red River boundary dispute between Texans and Oklahoma. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1930. From 1933-1935 he was chairman of the National Research Council and vice chairman of the Science Advisory board which was established by Franklin Delano Roosevelt at Bowman's suggestion.

Bowman became president of the Johns Hopkins University in 1935 and retired in 1948. His administration at Hopkins was marked by progress. He balanced the budget, raised an endowment fund of more than a million dollars, and strengthened the undergraduate departments, especially those devoted to physics, chemistry, biology, English, and geography. He stabilized the faculty and was responsible for merging the Boards of Trustees of the University and of the Hospital. The Johns Hopkins University under Bowman's leadership abolished athletic scholarships, the first major university to do so.

Bowman was also known for his anti-Semitic views and actions. He was reluctant to hire and retain Jewish faculty and staff at Hopkins, in addition to implementing a quota on the admission of students of Jewish descent. This viewpoint likely colored many of his policies in his activities outside of Hopkins as well.

During World War II Bowman served on the Policy Committee of the State Department and as Special Advisor to the Secretary of State. From 1942-1943 he was Chairman of the Territorial Committee, Department of State, and Vice-Chairman of the Post War Problems Committee, Department of State in 1944. He was a member of the Stettinius Mission to London in April 1944. He was a member of the American delegation to the Dumbarton Oaks Conference in 1944 and of the San Francisco Conference in 1945 when the United Nations was founded. After Bowman's retirement from Hopkins, he served as chairman of the Economic Cooperation Administration's Committee on Overseas Territories. He was a member of the Board of Overseers of Harvard; a member of the Committee on Studies of the Council of Foreign Relations in New York; directed the Maryland unit of the Hoover Reorganization Plan; head of the National Resources Commission; and was active in many civic and governmental affairs in Maryland. Bowman was the author of many books among which were Forest Physiography (1911); South America (1915); The New World: Problems in Political Geography (1921); Desert Trails of Atacama and An American Boundary Dispute (1923); The Mohammedan World (1924); International Relations (1930); The Pioneer Fringe (1931); Geography in Relation to the Social Sciences (1934); Design for Scholarship (1936); and Graduate School in American Democracy (1939). He also wrote many papers on South American geography and settlement.

Bowman was considered a humanist, philosopher, research scientist, and was sought after as a speaker. He married Cora Olive, daughter of James Walter Goldthwait, in Lynn, Massachusetts on June 28, 1909. They were the parents of three children: Walter Parker, Robert Goldthwait, and Olive Bowman Gerwig (Mrs. Walter H.)

Isaiah Bowman died in Baltimore on January 5, 1950.