author
John Carl Parish
1881–1939
An early 20th-century American historian, he wrote vivid biographies of major Iowa political figures and helped shape the study of U.S. history in the West. His career took him from Iowa classrooms to UCLA, where he also played a founding role in the Pacific Historical Review.
1 Audiobook
The Man with the Iron Hand
by John Carl Parish
About the author
Born in Des Moines, Iowa, John Carl Parish studied at the Iowa State Normal School and the University of Iowa, earning his Ph.D. in 1908. Even before finishing his doctorate, he had begun publishing historical biography, including work on Robert Lucas, John Chambers, and George Wallace Jones.
He taught at Colorado College, served in the Intelligence Section of the American Expeditionary Force during World War I, and later returned to the University of Iowa as a lecturer. In 1922 he joined the University of California, Los Angeles, where he rose from assistant professor to full professor.
Parish also worked as an editor and organizer of historical scholarship. He edited journals and collections during his career and is remembered as a founder of the Pacific Historical Review. A severe illness interrupted his teaching in the mid-1930s, and he died in 1939.