Joseph Allan Nevins[1] (May 20, 1890 – March 5, 1971) was an American historian and journalist, known for his extensive work on the history of the Civil War and his biographies of such figures as Grover Cleveland, Hamilton Fish, Henry Ford, and John D. Rockefeller, as well as his public service.
Nevins wrote his first book, The Life of Robert Rogers (1914) (about a Colonial American frontiersman and Loyalist) and a history of the University of Illinois (1917) during his postgraduate studies in that institution.
In 1931 he gave up his journalism job in order to become a full-time faculty member and in 1939 succeeded Evarts Boutell Greene (his teacher at Illinois and mentor at Columbia), as the Dewitt Clinton Professor of History.
His major works during this period included: Grover Cleveland: A Study in Courage (1932, which won his first Pulitzer Prize), History of the Bank of New York and Trust Company, 1784–1934 (1934), Hamilton Fish: The Inner Story of the Grant Administration (1936, which won his second Pulitzer Prize), The Gateway to History (1938), a two-volume biography of John D. Rockefeller, The Heroic Age of American Enterprise (1940; rewritten and expanded as A Study in Power: John D. Rockefeller, Industrialist and Philanthropist in 1953).
In addition to publishing four more volumes of the Civil War series, Nevins reworked the Rockefeller biography to cast a more favorable light upon the magnate.
From May 6, 1938, until August 18, 1957, Nevins hosted a 15-minute radio show Adventures in Science, which covered a wide variety of medical and scientific topics, and was broadcast as a segment of CBS' Adult Education Series various days, usually in the late afternoon.
After retiring from Columbia, Nevins relocated to California, where he worked as senior researcher at the Huntington Library in San Marino, and also returned to Oxford from 1964 to 1965.
Nevins wrote more than 50 books, mainly political and business history and biography focusing on the nineteenth century, in addition to his many newspaper and academic articles.
He preferred emphasizing practical notions about the importance of national unity, principled leadership, [classical] liberal politics, enlightened journalism, the social responsibility of business and industry, and scientific and technical progress that added to the cultural improvement of humanity.
[13] By contrast, historian Priscilla Roberts argues that his studies of inventors and businessmen brought about a reassessment of American industrialization and its leaders.
She writes: In contending that Rockefeller did "nothing criminal", in light of his central role in the Ludlow Massacre, Nevins seems to have equated non-prosecution with innocence.
[15] Historians and biographers who followed Nevins' lead include Jean Strouse, Ron Chernow, David Nasaw, and T. J. Stiles, chronicling the lives and careers of such figures as J. Pierpont Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and Cornelius Vanderbilt.
He also joined his friend, frequent co-editor, and Columbia colleague Henry Steele Commager in organizing "Professors for Kennedy", a political advocacy group in the 1960 presidential election.