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Richard John

Columbia University, Professor of History and Communications


Political Economy, history of communication, 19th c. US

Richard R. John is a historian who specializes in the history of business, technology, communications, and American political development.  He teaches and advises graduate students in Columbia’s Ph.D. program in communications, and is member of the core faculty of the Columbia history department, where he teaches courses on the history of capitalism and the history of communications.  His publications include many essays, eight edited books, and two monographs: Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse (1995) and Network Nation: Inventing American Telecommunications (2010).

John has been a fellow at the Newberry Library in Chicago and the Smithsonian Institution's Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D. C., and has served as a visiting professor at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. Among the institutions that have sponsored his research are the College of William and Mary, the American Antiquarian Society, and the National Endowment of the Humanities, which awarded him a faculty fellowship in 2008. Spreading the News received several national awards, including the Allan Nevins Prize from the Society of American Historians and the Herman E. Krooss Prize from the Business History Conference. Network Nation won the first Ralph Gomory Book Prize from the Business History Conference and was the 2010 Best Book in Journalism and Mass Communication History, an award bestowed by the History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. John is a former president of the Business History Conference, an international professional society dedicated to the study of institutional history.

Between 1977 and 1989, John earned a B.A. in social studies (magna cum laude), a M.A. in history and a Ph.D. in the history of American civilization, all from Harvard University.

Recent Presentations at BHC Annual Meetings
Service to the BHC
Past-President on Board 2012 - 2013
Nominating Committee 2011 - 2012
Past President 2011 - 2012
Program Committee 2010 - 2011 President
President 2010 - 2011
President-Elect 2009 - 2010
Program Committee 2003 - 2004 [Chair 2003 - 2004]
Nominating Committee 2001 - 2003 [Chair 2002 - 2003]
Board of Trustees 1997 - 2000

Prizes and Grants from the BHC
Harold F. Williamson Prize, 2002
Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History, 1990
Ralph Gomory Prize, 2011

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