Claude Gernade Bowers

views updated May 09 2018

Claude Gernade Bowers

The American journalist, historian, and diplomat Claude Gernade Bowers (1878-1958) wrote partisan but influential works on American political leaders. He had a successful career as an editorial columnist and as an ambassador.

Claude Bowers was born in Westfield, Ind., on Nov. 20, 1878, the son of a merchant. His formal education consisted of private tutoring, high school in Indianapolis, and a brief period reading law. By chance he became a newspaperman, writing editorials for the Indianapolis Sentinel (1901-1903) and for the Terre Haute Star (1903-1906).

From his high school days, when he had read the writings of Thomas Jefferson, Bowers espoused the cause of democracy and the Democratic party. He ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1904 and again in 1906. He served on the Terre Haute Board of Public Works (1906-1911) and was secretary to U.S. Senator John Worth Kern (1911-1917). Bowers then returned to journalism as editor of the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette. During these years he wrote Irish Orators (1916), The Life of J. Worth Kern (1918), and his first major historical work, The Party Battles of the Jackson Period (1922).

Bowers's versatility as a writer earned him a position on the editorial staff of the New York World, at that time the major spokesman for the liberal wing of the Democratic party. He worked on the newspaper from 1923 to 1931, and then wrote an independent political column for two years.

In 1925 Bowers published Jefferson and Hamilton: The Struggle for Democracy in America. The book became a best seller and revitalized the reputation of Thomas Jefferson. The book increased the demand for Bowers's services as a political speaker, and he climaxed his oratorical career with a stirring keynote address at the 1928 Democratic National Convention. Shortly afterward he published another popular success, The Tragic Era: The Revolution after Lincoln (1929).

Bowers's historical writing is characterized by emphasis on personalities and dramatic confrontations. More than just a popularizer, he was thoroughly versed in the history of the periods with which he dealt, and he made particularly effective use of contemporary newspapers.

In 1933 President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Bowers ambassador to Spain, where he served with distinction through the turmoil of the Spanish Civil War. He was assigned to Chile in 1939 and served there until his retirement in 1953. He died on Jan. 21, 1958, in New York City.

Bowers's other books include William Maxwell Evarts (1928), Jefferson and Civil and Religious Liberty (1930), Beveridge and the Progressive Era (1932), Jefferson in Power: The Death Struggle of the Federalists (1936), Spanish Adventures of Washington Irving (1940), The Young Jefferson, 1743-1789 (1945), Pierre Vergniaud: Voice of the French Revolution (1950), My Mission to Spain: Watching the Rehearsal for World War II (1954), Making Democracy a Reality (1954), and Chile through Embassy Windows, 1939-1953 (1958).