Augustus Jesse Bowie Jr. (December 10, 1872 – June 22, 1955, birth name Augustus Jesse Bowie III) was a pioneering American technology engineer, inventor and entrepreneur. His early innovations in large-capacity electrical switches, including the 1000lb. 287Kv disconnecting switch, were important in the spread of electrification on the West Coast of the United States during the 1910s-1920s, and became essential to the

New Deal The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Con ...

's mass-scale rural electrification efforts in the 1930s. Bowie was an 1896 graduate of the engineering program at

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the capital city, state capital and List of municipalities in Massachusetts, most populous city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financ ...

, the region of the United States was the center of innovation in and promulgation of electrification, which was primarily oriented towards centralized urban office/industrial use. Bowie, however, was born and bred in the

San Francisco bay area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Gov ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the ...

, and his mass electrification innovations were put into use in that geographically spread out region first, allowing for the building of an

electrical grid An electrical grid is an interconnected network for electricity delivery from producers to consumers. Electrical grids vary in size and can cover whole countries or continents. It consists of:Kaplan, S. M. (2009). Smart Grid. Electrical Power ...

that would spawn a decentralized regional culture of technological innovation; a region eventually recognized as

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo Count ...

. Bowie leveraged his many patents in business as the founder of San Francisco's Bowie Switch Company, located in the waterfront

Dogpatch Dogpatch was the fictional setting of cartoonist Al Capp's classic comic strip ''Li'l Abner'' (1934–1977). ''Li'l Abner'' comic strip The inhabitants of Dogpatch were mostly lazy hillbillies, who usually wanted nothing to do with progress. ...

district. The Bowie Switch Company would directly supply and implement his large-capacity switches for the

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

metro area, Hoover Dam, and

Grand Coulee Dam Grand Coulee Dam is a concrete gravity dam on the Columbia River in the U.S. state of Washington, built to produce hydroelectric power and provide irrigation water. Constructed between 1933 and 1942, Grand Coulee originally had two powerho ...

, among many others; and during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

the company expanded in order to produce switches for the U.S. war effort. More a businessman and inventor than an academic, Bowie's relative paucity of published writing outside electrical engineering journals (and his extensive legacy of patents) kept him largely unheralded outside electrical engineering circles following his death in 1955, despite his pivotal role in mass-scale electrification of the western United States and the bay area/Silicon Valley in particular.

Early life and family

Augustus Jesse Bowie III was born in San Francisco, California, and generally referred to himself as Augustus Jesse Bowie Jr. He was the grandson of Dr. Augustus Jesse Bowie (Oct. 23, 1815 – July 6, 1887), a descendant of the revolutionary period Scottish

loyalist Loyalism, in the United Kingdom, its overseas territories and its former colonies, refers to the allegiance to the British crown or the United Kingdom. In North America, the most common usage of the term refers to loyalty to the British Cro ...

and Maryland plantation owner John Bowie. Dr. Bowie came to San Francisco in April 1849, lured by the booming economy of the California Gold Rush. An experienced

orthopedic surgeon Orthopedic surgery or orthopedics ( alternatively spelt orthopaedics), is the branch of surgery concerned with conditions involving the musculoskeletal system. Orthopedic surgeons use both surgical and nonsurgical means to treat musculoskeleta ...

with the U.S. Navy as early as 1837, he set up a private practice in downtown San Francisco in 1851 and soon occupied a prominent place among San Francisco's arriviste elite. Named first surgeon at St. Mary's hospital in 1861 then Chair of Surgery in the Medical Department of the

University of the Pacific University of the Pacific may refer to: *University of the Pacific (Colombia) *University of the Pacific (Ecuador) *University of the Pacific (Peru) * University of the Pacific (United States) *University of Asia Pacific, Bangladesh * University of ...

in 1863, he was named to the then-new board of UC Regents in 1876. However, like his grandson AJ Bowie III, Dr. Bowie's lack of an academic publishing record kept him relatively under-recognized in historic terms. Augustus Jesse Bowie III's father, Augustus Jesse Bowie II (1845–1917) was Dr. Bowie's son, and was known as Augustus Jesse Bowie Jr. (as his own son would be later). In 1863, Augustus Jesse Bowie II received the first Bachelor of Arts degree to be awarded by San Francisco's St. Ignatius College, then went to Europe, receovog received a doctorate in engineering at

Heidelberg University } Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, (german: Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg; la, Universitas Ruperto Carola Heidelbergensis) is a public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, ...

He returned to San Francisco with his German fiancée, Eliza Friedlander, and married her there in 1870. An experienced and widely published geologist, hydrologist, and mining engineer, Bowie II wrote treatises on mining in the Sierra and irrigation in the Central Valley that are still found in print, including the seminal ''A Practical Treatise on Hydraulic Mining in California'' (pub. 1885, i online a
internet archive
. Bowie II and Eliza Friedlander's's eldest son was Augustus Jesse Bowie III (born in San Francisco in 1872),.

Education

Like his father, Augustus Jesse Bowie III studied at Saint Ignatius College (now the

University of San Francisco The University of San Francisco (USF) is a private Jesuit university in San Francisco, California. The university's main campus is located on a setting between the Golden Gate Bridge and Golden Gate Park. The main campus is nicknamed "The ...

), following which he went east and entered

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher ...

, graduating with honors and an A.B. in Mathematics in 1893. Bowie's coming of age and intellectual interests coincided with the biggest technological shift of the early 20th century – electrification. The locus of innovation in and promulgation of electrification in the United States was in the northeast, where the major players of this tech revolution were

Joseph Swan Sir Joseph Wilson Swan Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (31 October 1828 – 27 May 1914) was an English physicist, chemist, and inventor. He is known as an independent early developer of a successful incandescent light bulb, and is the pe ...

Thomas A. Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These invention ...

Nikola Tesla Nikola Tesla ( ; ,"Tesla"
'' Sacramento Electric, Gas and Railroad Company. Bowie was back in San Francisco by early 1906, where he filed his first patent application: a sophisticated electrical switch that would cleanly create a break in an electrical circuit, dramatically reducing the risk of damage to the electrical apparatus and/or the potential electrocution of the user. Only rudimentary means for such technology had existed up until this time. Aj bowie switch

Between this start in 1906 and the 1920s, Bowie was busy inventing and patenting products that helped lay the groundwork for this wider-scale electrification, the majority of which were new designs that vastly improved the safety, efficiency, and capacity of electrical current transmission. Among the most important of these patents are:
US 1110374 A
Filed 23 Jan. 1906, pub. 15 Sept. 1914,

Electrical Switch In electrical engineering, a switch is an electrical component that can disconnect or connect the conducting path in an electrical circuit, interrupting the electric current or diverting it from one conductor to another. The most common type ...

.
US 982789 A
Filed 18 Apr. 1907, pub. 31 Jan. 1911, Electromagnetic Power Transmitting Mechanism. ''Power transmission mechanism comprising a positively driven primary element mounted on a rotatable main shaft, and a sec ondary element mounted on a rotatable counter-shaft, out of alignment with the main shaft and driven therefrom, said primary and secondary elements forming an electromagnetic inductive system involving a magnet having an air gap, and an energizing coil for said magnet, and an electric conductor interposed in said air gap. --Journal of Electricity, Power, and Gas, Jan-June 1911''
US 1230372 A
Filed 9 Dec. 1909, pub. 19 Jun. 1917,

Electric Switch In electrical engineering, a switch is an electrical component that can disconnect or connect the conducting path in an electrical circuit, interrupting the electric current or diverting it from one conductor to another. The most common type of ...

.
US 1168595 A
Filed 26 Feb. 1910, pub. 18 Jan 1916, Lightning-Arrester.
US 1287851 A
Filed 12 Mar. 1914, pub. 17 Dec 1918, Electric-energy converter and meter.

Bowie Switch Company and Electrification

While George Roe's California Electric Light Company had commenced electrification operations in San Francisco in 1879, with a capacity to light 21 lights, San Francisco did not realize a significant, widely available electrical capacity until over four decades later; partially as a result of the infrastructural devastation wrought by the earthquake of 1906.''Pacific Gas and Electric: History Page''
retrieved 2/12/2017 Demand for electricity, however, continued to grow exponentially. In 1920, the California Electric Light Company hosted hundreds of people (who were lined up around the block) in a showcase of the first all-electric model home, replete with dozens of new appliances that required electricity to function – electricity that was still not available in many parts of California, particularly rural areas and outlying suburbs. With the patents he created in the first two decades of the twentieth century, AJ Bowie III was poised to leverage the market potential of demand for electricity as electrification took full force. His eponymously named Bowie Switch Company had been successfully marketing his inventions since at least 1913 and operated a facility at 18th and Folsom Streets in San Francisco, and in 1926 the company moved to a newly built factory at 815 Tennessee Street in the

neighborhood of San Francisco. The Bowie Switch Company building, a brick-faced

classic revival Neoclassicism (also spelled Neo-classicism) was a Western cultural movement in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that drew inspiration from the art and culture of classical antiquity. Neoclassicism wa ...

style structure in the

utilitarian In ethical philosophy, utilitarianism is a family of normative ethical theories that prescribe actions that maximize happiness and well-being for all affected individuals. Although different varieties of utilitarianism admit different charact ...

tradition, was designed by noted Swedish architect August J. Nordin, designer of the historic landmark Swedish American Hall on upper Market Street.''Landmark Designation Application for 815-825 Tennessee Street''
prepared by John Loomis, on behalf of the Dogpatch Neighborhood, dated July 20, 2015 Built to integrate production with the newly emergent long-haul trucking industry, the Bowie Switch Company building was well-positioned to distribute its products to locales both local and national, including in rural areas that were not serviced by existing rail transport networks. This broad distributive capacity, combined with rapidly increasing demand for electrification, would prove to be instrumental in positioning the Bowie Switch Company squarely in the center of the

Franklin Delano Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...

administration's efforts in the

Rural Electrification Act The Rural Electrification Act of 1936, enacted on May 20, 1936, provided federal loans for the installation of electrical distribution systems to serve isolated rural areas of the United States. The funding was channeled through cooperative ele ...

and related major public works in the American West during the 1930s, including designing switches for the unprecedented amount of

hydropower Hydropower (from el, ὕδωρ, "water"), also known as water power, is the use of falling or fast-running water to produce electricity or to power machines. This is achieved by converting the gravitational potential or kinetic energy of ...

being generated by the newly built

Boulder In geology, a boulder (or rarely bowlder) is a rock fragment with size greater than in diameter. Smaller pieces are called cobbles and pebbles. While a boulder may be small enough to move or roll manually, others are extremely massive. In ...

and

Grand Coulee Grand Coulee is an ancient river bed in the U.S. state of Washington. This National Natural Landmark stretches for about 60 miles (100 km) southwest from Grand Coulee Dam to Soap Lake, being bisected by Dry Falls into the Upper and Lo ...

Dams

WPA Hydropower Projects (Boulder and Grand Coulee dams)

Electrification in the United States' urban centers became standard during the 1920s and early 1930s, while rural and suburban electrification remained largely unrealized. This was in part due to U.S. political dynamics that discouraged the use of public funds for major infrastructure projects in favor of private development, and as rural electrification was yet to be proven a profitable endeavor private enterprise ventures were unconvinced of its viability. However, while the Great Depression was in full swing, the early 1930s saw the initiation of new, publicly funded programs under President Franklin D. Roosevelt to support electrification in rural America where there was both great need and great poverty. This activity culminated in a new

WPA WPA may refer to: Computing *Wi-Fi Protected Access, a wireless encryption standard *Windows Product Activation, in Microsoft software licensing *Wireless Public Alerting (Alert Ready), emergency alerts over LTE in Canada * Windows Performance Ana ...

program, the

of 1935, which extended the electrification wave beyond urban centers and across the continental United States. The major infrastructural expansion of electrical capacity from these programs increased demand for Bowie III's products, and placed his company into an important position as a government contractor. As the 1930s began, low-voltage (2300 volt) electrical distribution systems were the standard, and they could only carry electricity about four miles before

voltage drop Voltage drop is the decrease of electrical potential along the path of a current flowing in an electrical circuit. Voltage drops in the internal resistance of the source, across conductors, across contacts, and across connectors are undesirabl ...

rendered the remaining current useless for standard domestic applications. To increase the viability of high-voltage current carriage to rural and suburban areas (including outlying regions of Bowie's Bay Area home such as San Jose, Gilroy, Mountain View, Martinez, etc.), innovative (and often expensive) higher-voltage systems were needed to handle capacity for lines that would carry power over 40 miles from a station. For these new high-voltage systems, as well as centralized hydropower projects that generated unprecedented amounts of electrical current, the potential for injuries, explosions, and destruction of equipment was very high, so new high-capacity switches were required to be able to manage the power effectively and safely – the Bowie Switch Company was a locus for innovation and implementation of these switches, and the company kept very busy during the 1930s.''287 Kv Boulder Dam Disconnecting Switches''. Transactions of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, Volume: 55, Issue: 6, June 1936. pp.582-589 One of Bowie's greatest achievements during this period were the innovative 287,000 volt (287kv) disconnecting switches, which at the time and for many years thereafter were by far the world's largest (in mass and capacity) and weighed over 1000 pounds each. These switches were designed for the enormous quantity of power generated by Hoover Dam and

, and were the only way to safely regulate the flow of electricity from the harsh environmental surroundings of their generation sites through power lines that had the capacity to carry electricity over 250 miles to urban, rural, and newly developing suburban areas.

World War II and Post-War

When the U.S. entered into

in 1941, the war effort further increased the demand for Bowie's products in both military and civilian capacities, particularly for the high voltage and safety controls (disconnecting switches) needed in the industrial-scale production of military goods, vehicles, weapons, and ships. In 1942 the Bowie Switch Co. added an assembly facility to the east, increasing the company's ability to manufacture goods at the scale and speed required by the military.Loomis, p.21 On August 19, 1944, President Roosevelt issued

Executive Order In the United States, an executive order is a directive by the president of the United States that manages operations of the federal government. The legal or constitutional basis for executive orders has multiple sources. Article Two of ...

9466, which directed the Secretary of the Navy "to take possession of and operate the plants and facilities of certain machine shop companies" in San Francisco, one of the 99 temporarily nationalized industries was the Bowie Switch Company of San Francisco.''Executive Order 9466'', The Code of Federal Regulations of the United States of America, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1957. p.327-328 While the managerial structure and employees of the Bowie Switch Company remained intact during this time, the company exclusively produced products to aid the war effort. Soon after the war's conclusion in 1945, the Bowie Switch Company (along with other temporarily nationalized industries) was brought back to full private control under A.J. Bowie Jr (A.J. Bowie III). However, by the end of the year Bowie sold Bowie Switch Company to the A.B. Chance Company of Moberly, Missouri; a sale which had been pending since 1941. At the time of sale in December 1945, the Bowie Switch Company employed approximately 70–100 people, and after the sale Bowie was kept on as a consulting engineer. World War II turned out to have been the apogee of the Bowie Switch Company, but under the ownership of A.B. Chance, it continued to produce electrical products until 1960 before ceasing operations.

Legacy

Augustus Jesse Bowie Jr. (AKA Augustus Jesse Bowie III) was one of the San Francisco Bay Area's earliest technology pioneers, and his invention, marketing, and production of groundbreaking disconnecting switch technology was a key component in the spread of electrification outside city centers on the American west coast. The early development of this capacity would prove to have a lasting impact in the rural areas of the state and the sprawling, decentralized

DIY "Do it yourself" ("DIY") is the method of building, modifying, or repairing things by oneself without the direct aid of professionals or certified experts. Academic research has described DIY as behaviors where "individuals use raw and sem ...

technology laboratory of the bay area suburbs that would eventually become known as

– a metaphorically appropriate outcome, given that the

binary code A binary code represents text, computer processor instructions, or any other data using a two-symbol system. The two-symbol system used is often "0" and "1" from the binary number system. The binary code assigns a pattern of binary digits, als ...

underlying all digital technology is based on a series of switches. As noted earlier, Bowie was highly regarded and very influential in electrical engineering circles and was sought-after by planners as a top-flight engineer, but he was much more a businessman than an academic and was little-known outside his profession due to a relative lack of published materials (besides several articles in electrical engineering journals and his numerous patents). In 1913, Bowie married his close friend Esther Donnelly (who already had a six-year-old child); however, the couple had no children of their own and divorced in 1918. AJ Bowie Jr. (III) never remarried, and died on June 22, 1955, in Children's Hospital San Francisco at the age of 82. He is buried in Colma, California.''California Death Index'', State of California Department of Health Services, Center for Health Statistics, 2000, http://www.ancestry.com, 1/9/2009

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bowie, Augustus Jesse Jr. 1872 births 1955 deaths Silicon Valley people Businesspeople from San Francisco American electrical engineers 19th-century American inventors University of San Francisco alumni MIT School of Engineering alumni Harvard College alumni Engineers from California