Harvey J. Graff
Brief Biographical Statement
Harvey J. Graff is Ohio Eminent Scholar in Literacy
Studies and Professor of English and History at The Ohio State University. He
joined OSU in 2004, and is developing the Literacy Studies @ OSU initiative
with the support of a university-wide Literacy Studies Working Group.
Previously, he was Professor of History and member of three doctoral faculties
at the
Holder of a Bachelor of Arts degree (1970) from
Northwestern University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, Graff received
the Master of Arts (1971) and Doctor of Philosophy (1975) degrees from The
University of Toronto. He has served as a visiting professor in history at
A comparative social historian, Graff is known
internationally, especially for his books and articles on the history of
literacy and the importance of that history to contemporary issues, his
contributions to urban history and urban studies, and more recently for his
research on the history of children, adolescents, and youth. His writings are
published in
Graff is a recipient of awards and fellowships from the
Woodrow Wilson Foundation, Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation (
Among Professor
Graff’s major works are The Literacy Myth: Literacy and Social Structure in
the Nineteenth-Century City (Academic Press, 1979; new edition, Transaction
Publications, 1991); Literacy in History: An Interdisciplinary Research
Bibliography (Garland, 1981); Dallas, Texas: A Guide to the Sources of
Its Social History, with Alan Baron and Charles Barton (University of Texas
Press, 1981); The Legacies of Literacy: Continuities and Contradictions in
Western Culture and Society (Indiana University Press, 1987, Italian
edition, 1989, Critics’ Choice Award of the American Educational Studies
Society); The Labyrinths of Literacy: Reflections on Literacy Past and
Present (Falmer Press, 1987; revised and expanded edition, University of
Pittsburgh Press, Series on Composition, Literacy, and Culture, 1995;
Portuguese and Spanish translations forthcoming); Conflicting Paths: Growing
Up in America (Harvard University Press, 1995; Choice Magazine
Outstanding Academic Book Award, 1995). A new collection of his essays was published in
Italian in the distinguished series “Il Sapere Del Libro” from Edizioni
Sylvestre Bonnard in
Graff has also published more than 100 articles and essays on the history of cities; education; literacy; family, women, and children; growing up; criminality; social structure and population; and methodology and theory in the humanities and social sciences numerous journals. A contributor to a number of encyclopedias and reference works, his writings are often reprinted and translated.
Graff has coauthored Children and Schools in Nineteenth-Century Canada/L’école canadienne et l’enfant au dix-neuvième siècle with Alison Prentice (Canada’s Visual History, National Museum of Man, 1979; revised edition on CD-ROM, 1994); and edited Quantification and Psychohistory with Paul Monaco (University Press of America, 1980); Literacy and Social Development in the West (Cambridge University Press, 1981, Italian edition, 1986); National Literacy Campaigns: Historical and Comparative Perspectives with Robert Arnove (Plenum Publications, 1987); Growing Up in America: Historical Experiences (Wayne State University Press, 1987); “Understanding Literacy in its Historical Contexts,” special issue, Interchange (co-editor, 2003), and Looking Backward and Looking Forward: Perspectives on Social Science History (University of Wisconsin Press, 2005).
Graff edits the Interdisciplinary Studies in History book series for Indiana University Press. He has served on the editorial boards of such journals as Interchange, History of Education Quarterly, Historical Methods, Social Science History, Historical Social Research/Historische Sozialforschung, Literacy and Numeracy Studies, Journal of Language, Identity,and Education, American Periodicals, and several book series. He is an advisory board member for H-Urban and H-Childhood of the H-Net history and humanities electronic Internet networks. He reviews manuscripts and books for numerous presses and journals.
Past president of North Texas Phi Beta Kappa, Graff has
held offices in the Canadian Association for American Studies, History of
Education Society, Urban History Association, Society for the History of
Children and Youth, and Social Science History Association. In 1998-99, he
served as Vice President and President-Elect, and in 1999-2000, President of
the Social Science History Assocation. He presided over the 25th
anniversary of the SSHA, a combined celebration and critical stock-taking with
the theme “Looking Backward and Looking Forward: Perspectives on Social Science
History.” He regularly consults with civic and community organizations,
historical societies, newspapers and television stations, and humanities and
literacy programs, including projects and programs in
Professor Graff is currently continuing his project on the
social and cultural history of growing up--children, adolescents, and youth—and
has completed City at the Crossroads: Dallas, the Book, a new
interpretation of American urbanization and an urban historian and urbanite’s
critical reflections on the city’s past, present, and future. He prepared the
chapter on history for The Social Worlds of Higher Education: Handbook for Teaching
in a New Century (1999), a project of the American Sociological
Association, and the entry on literacy for the Oxford Companion to United
States History (2001). Current editing projects include a volume on “Literacy, Religion, Gender, and Social History: A
Socio-Cultural History for the 21st Century. An International
Conference for Egil Johansson,”
Born in
[2006]