William Leigh Sowers was born April 15, 1886, in Bedford, Iowa. He earned his B.A. at Lake Forest College in 1907. He took his M.A. and Ph.D. at Harvard University, in 1910 and 1914. Dr. Sowers taught English at the University of Texas after graduating at Harvard, where he remained until 1919. Sowers then joined the faculty at the State University of Iowa in 1923 as an assistant professor of English. He was made full professor in 1951, and retired in 1958. Dr. Sowers' area of specialty was theatre and drama, and he instructed many students who later developed successful theatre careers, including Tennessee Williams and Norman Felton. His articles about stagecraft appeared in The Texas Review, The Drama, The Theatre Arts Magazine, and Scribner's Magazine, between 1916 and 1923. Sowers died February 23, 1969.