Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

The collection is without restrictions.

Use Restrictions

See the University of Virginia Library’s use policy.

Preferred Citation

Louis G. Cowan World War II Propaganda Collection, Accession # 11569, Special Collections Dept., University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.

Acquisition Information

This collection was given to the University of Virginia Library by his daughter, Holly Cowan Shulman, Charlottesville, Virginia, in December 1999.

Biographical/Historical Information

Louis G. Cowan (1909-1976), son of Jacob J. and Hetty Smitz Cowan, began his work with the Overseas Branch of the Office of War Information as a liaison to the OWI from the army. Then he became head of the Radio Program Bureau where he stayed from July 1943 until 1944. Taking charge of the New York office, Cowan directed operations to Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.

Cowan was a public relations expert ( President   of the Louis G. Cowan Company, 1931-1941) and radio producer (Louis G. Cowan, Inc., radio and TV productions, 1946-1955) who was first exposed to the world of propaganda at the University of Chicago in his college course with sociologist, Harold Lasswell, a leading expert in the field during the twenties and thirties. He created radio shows such as "Kay Kyser's College of Musical Knowledge" and "The Quiz Kids." In 1941, he joined the Radio Division of the Army Bureau of Public Relations, moving over to the Foreign Information Service in April 1942. Cowan married Pauline Spiegel in 1939 and had four children, Paul, Geoffrey, Holly, and Liza.

After the war, he became vice- president   for creative services for CBS TV network (1955-1958) and then president   (1958-1959); director of Morse Communication Research Center at Brandeis University (1961-1965); and director of Special Programs in the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University in 1965. He also served at the President and editor of Chilmark Press, Inc. and chairman of the publication and advisory board of the Partisan Review .