Charles Bowden, Historian of the Future

Abstract

Charles Bowden, Historian of the Future Bill Broyles (bio) and Bruce J. Dinges (bio) He bolted upright up in his sleeping bag as his fellow paddlers on the lower Colorado River canoe trip were already making breakfast. It was unusual for Chuck Bowden not to wake first, light the camp stove, and make coffee. For four days he had regaled his companions with details of a scandal that was about to hit the national headlines. Charles Keating and his Lincoln Savings and Loan had mishandled enough money ($3.4 billion) to shake U.S. financial markets and cause a cascade of bank failures. Bowden and his co-author, Michael Binstein, had dredged the records, staked out the courtrooms, stalked witnesses and attorneys, and interviewed the principals, including Keating—Chuck portrayed him as a fine fellow with whom to have dinner, but who would rob your bank blind if you let him. It was a story that Bowden had been living with for at least a year, sniffing through ledgers and shell companies like a bloodhound with a typewriter. Chuck wasn't one for typical greetings, like "Good morning" or "How did you sleep?" Instead, he launched into a monologue about whatever was on his mind. This morning's topic was a pre-dawn dream he had involving a nightclub, a band, and a lady wearing a black velvet evening gown who asked, "Do you want to touch my dress?" Chuck wanted to meet her. "Maybe tonight, if I'm lucky," he mused, before reaching for a cigarette. ________ Charles Clyde Bowden was born on the family's small farm near Joliet, Illinois, on July 20, 1945, and he died on August 31, 2014, in Las Cruces, New Mexico. In between, he led a full life, mostly following his own guide-star. At age three, the family moved to Chicago, where [End Page 7] Click for larger view View full resolution Charles Bowden as a graduate student at University of Wisconsin, about 1970. (Charles Bowden Papers, Wittliff Collections, Texas State University, San Marcos, box 101, folder 3. © Charles Clyde Bowden Literary Trust, Mary Martha Miles, Trustee.) [End Page 8] Chuck's father, Jude, worked for the Internal Revenue Service. His mother, Bernina "Bo," managed the household that included Chuck's older siblings George and Peggy (Peg). In 1957, when Chuck was twelve, the family relocated to Tucson, Arizona. Chuck attended Tucson High School and graduated from the University of Arizona, with a BA in history, in 1966. He enrolled in the graduate program at University of Wisconsin at Madison on a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, earning a master's degree in American intellectual history in 1967. He went on Click for larger view View full resolution Charles Bowden's parents, Bo and Jude, with his brother George and sister Peggy, about 1944, Joliet, Illinois. (Charles Bowden Papers, Wittliff Collections, Texas State University, San Marcos, box 101, folder 3. © Charles Clyde Bowden Literary Trust, Mary Martha Miles, Trustee.) [End Page 9] Click for larger view View full resolution Charles Bowden, high school, Tucson, Arizona. (Charles Bowden Papers, Wittliff Collections, Texas State University, San Marcos, to be catalogued. © Charles Clyde Bowden Literary Trust, Mary Martha Miles, Trustee.) [End Page 10] to complete the course requirements for the PhD and worked on his doctoral dissertation, "Broke Bodies: A Look at 19th Century Notions about Health." In the meantime, he supplemented his income with a gig doing field research for the university archive before taking a job in 1970 as an American history instructor at the University of Illinois, Chicago Circle. He discovered that he hated classroom teaching and left before his contract expired. With few viable options Chuck and his wife, Zada Edgar, his high school sweetheart whom he married in 1968, returned to Tucson. Zada had earned her BA at Wisconsin and her MA at Smith College when the couple had lived in Ashfield, Massachusetts. Back in Tucson, Chuck took odd jobs while Zada obtained a JD at the University of Arizona before joining the Pima County Attorney's Office in 1976. He had submitted his dissertation to the University of Wisconsin history department, but the process dragged on with committee members coming and...