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 is the author of The Farm Press, Reform, and Rural Change: 1895-1920 (2005), the editor of Laura Gibson Smith's Almost Pioneers: One Couple's Homesteading Adventure in the West (2013), and the author of A Prairie Faith: The Religious Life of Laura Ingalls Wilder (2024). He previously taught History and Foundations courses for twenty-three years at Trinity Christian College in Palos Heights, Illinois. He also served as Chair of the History Department, Dean of Faculty, and Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs at Trinity.

Dr. Fry believes that history enables us to listen to the voices of the past. He writes, “Those voices enable us to trace why the present is the way that it is. In addition, listening to those voices helps us to engage people who don’t think the way we do. People in the past also have much to teach us about how to view the world and how to live a meaningful life. Finally, God's Word calls us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, including our neighbors who live in the past, and that means paying careful attention to what they said and did.”

Disciplines/Field of Instruction

• History and Humanities

Courses

• Humanities 203 - Making the West
• History 251 - United States History, 1800-1920

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. 

Articles

• “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

• Interview with Lucy S. R. Austen for The Conference on Faith and History Podcast, posted 12 July 2024;
• “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.
• Interview with Shaun Tabatt for The Shaun Tabatt Show, podcast and youtube video, posted 17 February 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; 

Recent Presentations

• “AI and the Small Christian College Learning Community.” Baylor Symposium on Faith and Culture, 2026: Technology and the Human Person in the Age of AI, Waco, Texas, 26-28 February 2026.
• Iowa History 101: "A Prairie Faith: The Religious Life of Laura Ingalls Wilder," posted 10 April 2025;
• “A Midwestern Faith: The Religious Life of Laura Ingalls Wilder.” Midwestern History Conference, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 31 May 2024.
• “‘On the Pilgrim Way’: The Faith of Laura Ingalls Wilder.” LauraPalooza 2022: The Wilder Side, Burlington, Vermont, 14 July 2022.
• “Not as a Child and Not from the Midwest: My Path to Wilder Research.” Midwestern History Conference, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 30 June 2019.
• “Biography, Audience, Meaning, and the Faith of Laura Ingalls Wilder.” Conference on Faith and History Biennial Meeting, Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 6 October 2018.
• “Little House and Little Church: Memory and the Church in the Published Works of Laura Ingalls Wilder.” Midwestern History Conference, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 7 June 2017.

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