James Bowdoin graduated from Harvard College in 1745 and entered Massachusetts public life, serving in the colonial legislature and council. A patriot leader, he presided over the convention that drafted the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, one of the models for the federal Constitution.
Elected governor of Massachusetts in 1785, Bowdoin firmly suppressed Shays’ Rebellion, the armed uprising of debt-ridden farmers in 1786–87, an episode that helped spur the movement for a stronger national government. A noted patron of science, he was the first president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, which he helped found, and Bowdoin College was later named in his honor. He died in 1790.