Profile:
Richard R. John teaches courses on American history, with a focus on business, technology, communications, and political development. His many publications include Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse (Harvard University Press, 1995; paperback, 1998). At present he is completing a history of American telecommunications, 1840-1924. John has received the Allan Nevins Prize (for Spreading the News) and the Harold F. Williamson Prize for a scholar at mid-career who has made significant contributions to business history. He has been a fellow at the Smithsonian’s Woodrow Wilson Center and a visiting professor at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. John is co-editor of two book series: “American Business, Politics, and Society” with the University of Pennsylvania Press; and “How Things Worked: Institutional Dimensions of the American Past” with Johns Hopkins University Press. In addition, he serves on the editorial boards of the Business History Review, Enterprise and Society, and the Journal of Policy History, and is a founder of the Newberry Library’s Seminar on Technology, Politics, and Culture.