John J. Fry, PhD

John J. Fry was born in Pittsburgh. His B.A. in History is from Geneva (1991), and he also has an M.L.S. in Library Science from the University of Pittsburgh and an M.A. in History from Duquesne University. He received a Ph.D. in history, specializing in rural history and the American West, from the University of Iowa (2002). He previously wrote The Farm Press, Reform, and Rural Change: 1895-1920 (2005) and edited Laura Gibson Smith’s Almost Pioneers: One Couple’s Homesteading Adventure in the West (2013).

Dr. John Fry believes that history enables us to listen to the voices of the past. “This is important for a number of reasons: Those voices enable us to trace why the present is the way that it is; listening to those voices helps us to engage people who don’t think the way we do; and people in the past have much to teach us about how to view the world and how to live a meaningful life.”

Disciplines/Field of Instruction

• History and Humanities

Degrees Received

• Ph.D., University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, 2002
• M.A., Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1997
• M.L.S., University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1992
• B.A., Geneva College, Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, 1991

Published Books

• A Prairie Faith: The Religious Life of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Book in production, to be published February 6, 2024 by Eerdmans Publishers in their series The Library of Religious Biography.
• Laura Gibson Smith, Almost Pioneers: One Couple’s Homesteading Adventure in the West. Edited by John J. Fry. Guilford, CT: Globe-Pequot Press, 2013.
• The Farm Press, Reform, and Rural Change, 1895-1920. New York: Routledge, 2005. 

Presentations and Publications (selected)

•  “Henry A. Wallace.” The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Political and Legal History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.
• “‘Good Farming – Clear Thinking – Right Living’: Midwestern Farm Newspapers, Social Reform, and Rural Readers in the Early Twentieth Century.” Agricultural History 78 (Winter 2004): 34-49.

Interviews

• “Video Interview with John J. Fry, Author of A Prairie Faith: The Religious Life of Laura Ingalls Wilder.” Author interview published by Books At a Glance, 5 March 2024.
• “Almost Pioneers: One Couple’s Homesteading Adventure in the West.” Interview with Charity Nebbe, Iowa Public Radio, aired on 19 September 2013. 
• Paul Kengor and John J. Fry, “V&V Q&A: The Politics of Laura Ingalls Wilder.” Interview with the director of the Center for Vision And Values, Grove City College, published in regional newspapers, 21 September 2009, and The St. Croix Review 42(6)(2009): 56-60; 

Honors and Awards

• A Prairie Faith named a 2024 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award Winner for Biography.
• Recipient of travel grant from the Herbert Hoover Presidential Foundation to do research in West Branch, Iowa for research project on the Faith of Laura Ingalls Wilder, 2016
• Almost Pioneers named Best Nonfiction Book on Wyoming History by the Wyoming State Historical Society, 2014

Professional Society Memberships

• The Conference on Faith and History
• The Midwestern History Association