As a historian, he pioneered the interdisciplinary application of social science techniques to the study of urban history and promoted cities as an important academic subject.

[1] Wade matriculated at the University of Rochester, where as a student-athlete, he participated in multiple sports while earning a bachelor's and master's degree in history.

Among Wade's undergraduate and graduate students were Kenneth T. Jackson, Carl Abbott, Harold Rabinowitz, Howard Chudacoff, and Thomas Philpott.

In addition to advising Adlai Stevenson, he worked for Robert Kennedy's 1964 US Senate Campaign and George McGovern in his Democratic primary for President in 1972.

[4] In The Urban Frontier, Wade summarized the claims that scholars had made for the importance of the city in American history.

The failure of the South to develop an urban infrastructure significantly weakened it during the American Civil War, especially after its border cities of Baltimore, Washington, Louisville, and St. Louis refused to join the Confederacy.

See Richard Wade, "The City in History: Some American Perspectives," in Werner Z. Hirsch, ed., Urban Life and Form (1963) pages 59–77.