John Hohenberg

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John Hohenberg (February 17, 1906 – August 6, 2000) was an American journalist and academic. During his journalism career from the 1920s to 1950s, Hohenberg primarily worked at the

Pulitzer Prizes, retaining this position for two additional years at the request of the Pulitzer Board after taking emeritus status. In 1976, he received a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation
upon retiring from his administrative role.

Early life and education

Hohenberg was born Jacob S. Hohenberg in a tenement on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. When he was one and a half, he and his family relocated to Seattle, where they remained throughout his childhood and adolescence.[1] He attended the University of Washington as an engineering major from 1922 to 1924 before pursuing a journalistic career and returning to New York, where he received a B.Litt. from Columbia University's Journalism School (which then only conferred undergraduate degrees) in 1927. The following year, Hohenberg completed non-degree graduate studies at the University of Vienna on a Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship, presaging his later involvement with the awards program.[2][3]

Career

In 1923, Hohenberg worked at

Army Transportation Corps as a public relations specialist, attaining the rank of technician third grade. Following the war, Hohenberg returned to the Post (by now an influential liberal tabloid under the ownership of Dorothy Schiff) as a United Nations, Washington, D.C. and foreign correspondent from 1946 to 1950, greatly enhancing his public profile.[4]

After inquiring about a position with the Journalism School, Hohenberg returned to Columbia as a part-time undergraduate journalism lecturer at the

School of General Studies in 1948.[4] In 1950, he left the Post and joined the faculty of the Journalism School as a tenured full professor.[2] Beginning in 1954, he also served as the inaugural Pulitzer Prize administrator.[5] Prior to the creation of this position, the program was jointly managed by the dean of the Journalism School and other officials at Columbia, including longtime provost Frank D. Fackenthal and his staff. Hohenberg held this joint appointment until 1974, when he stepped down from his professorship. In 1976, Hohenberg retired as administrator after overseeing the transition of the program's Advisory Board into an autonomous award-granting body (thereafter known as the Pulitzer Prize Board) in conjunction with chairman Joseph Pulitzer Jr. and Columbia president William J. McGill.[6] That year, Hohenberg received a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation for his service.[7]

While at Columbia, he also served as a consultant to the

East-West Center as a senior specialist (1967) and held a visiting professorship at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (1970–1971). He was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations
.

Following his mandatory retirement from Columbia, Hohenberg maintained a peripatetic academic career as a visiting professor, lecturer and professional-in-residence, teaching at the University of Tennessee (1975; 1976–1977; 1978–1981; 1987), the University of Kansas (1977–1978), the University of Florida (1981–1982), Harvard University (1981), the University of Miami (1982–1983) and Syracuse University (1983–1985). During this period, he also returned to the Pulitzers as a journalism juror on several occasions and conducted an Asian lecture tour for the United States Information Agency in 1982. Throughout his journalistic and academic careers, he published 22 books, including a popular college journalism textbook (The Professional Journalist), a novel and several institutional histories of the Pulitzers.

Personal life

After residing in

Park Slope, Brooklyn throughout his journalistic career, Hohenberg moved to a Columbia-owned faculty apartment at 90 Morningside Drive for the duration of his affiliation.[8] Throughout his adult life, he summered in Aquebogue, New York
.

On August 6, 2000, he died in Knoxville, Tennessee, where he had been based since retiring from Columbia. He married Dorothy Lannuier, a classmate at the Columbia Journalism School, in 1928. She died from complications of Alzheimer's disease in 1977; they had no children. He was survived by his second wife, JoAnn Fogarty Johnson, and her two children, whom he adopted.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c Martin, Douglas (August 8, 2000). "John Hohenberg, 94, Former Pulitzer Prize Official, Dies". The New York Times. p. A25. Retrieved 1 March 2020.
  2. ^ . Retrieved 29 February 2020.
  3. . Retrieved 29 February 2020.
  4. ^ . Retrieved 29 February 2020.
  5. ^ "Professor Shifts Schools". The Daily Telegram. Vol. 160, no. 88. Adrian, Michigan. April 13, 1976. p. 18.
  6. . Retrieved 29 February 2020.
  7. ^ "Professor John Hohenberg". Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved 29 March 2020.
  8. ^ "Hohenberg Wins Special Citation (Published 1976)". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2023-03-09.