Erik Barnouw (June 23, 1908 – July 19, 2001) was an American historian ofradio and televisionbroadcasting. At the time of his death, Barnouw was widely considered to be America's most distinguished historian of broadcasting.^[1]

According to theScribner Encyclopedia of American Lives, Erik Barnouw was born inThe Hague in theNetherlands, the son of Adriaan (a history teacher), and Ann Eliza Barnouw (who tutored English). The Barnouws came to America in 1919, after the end ofWorld War I when his father became one of the editors of the Weekly Review and later was the Queen Wilhelmina Professor atColumbia University. Erik attendedHorace Mann School in New York City.^[2]Thereafter Barnouw attendedPrinceton University where he was an editor of theNassau Literary Magazine. After the success of his playOpen Collars, which he wrote for Princeton's Theatre Intime and which spoofed undergraduate life at the university, Barnouw collaborated withJoshua Logan on thePrinceton Triangle Club's musical playZuider Zee. In the spring of his junior year, he and fellow PrincetonianBretaigne Windust, together with Harvard juniors Charles Crane Leatherbee and Kingsley Perry, contributed $100 each toward founding theUniversity Players, a summer stock company inWest Falmouth onCape Cod, Massachusetts. Over the course of five summers on Cape Cod and two winter seasons inBaltimore, Maryland, the company gave the professional start to the acting careers of such future stars asMargaret Sullavan,Henry Fonda,Joshua Logan,Myron McCormick,Kent Smith,James Stewart, andMildred Natwick.^[3]

Prior to becoming a professor at Columbia University in 1946, Barnouw spent the mid-1930s writing, producing, and directing a number of radio shows for theCBS andNBC radio networks. He also taught Writing for Radio at Columbia on a part-time basis. DuringWorld War II he oversaw theArmed Forces Radio Service's education division, based in Washington, D.C. He won aPeabody Award in 1944, for a documentary series, "Words at War."^[4]

In 1949, Barnouw worked with theUnited States Public Health Service on theV. D. Radio Project, a series of programs created to combatsyphilis. The V. D. Radio Project featured a variety of programming—PSAs, interviews with doctors and patients, soap operas, and "ballad dramas"—and enlisted the efforts a wide variety of famous men and women in producing those programs, includingAlan Lomax,Adam Clayton Powell Jr.,Hank Williams Sr.,Jinx Falkenburg, andHenry Fonda.^[2][5]

Barnouw was elected chairman of theWriters Guild of America in 1957 and also served on the Board of Governors of theAcademy of Television Arts and Sciences.

In 1978 he became chief of theLibrary of Congress's newly created Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division.

He is best known for his history of U.S. radio and television, a three volume series first published in 1966. Volume 1, "A Tower in Babel," covered radio until 1933; the second volume, "'The Golden Web," covered broadcasting until the 1950s; the final volume, "The Image Empire," discussed the rise and growth of television.The New York Times Book Reviews (28 November 1971, p. BR 59) praised Barnouw's work as "continually readable and sharply observant." Written at the invitation of Oxford University Press, the three volume series "anchored his reputation as the foremost scholar of broadcasting."^[6] According to media historian Christopher H. Sterling, before the publication of this trilogy "broadcasting history was then largely restricted to a few popular picture books."^[7] Barnouw's publications "added hugely to the legitimacy of broadcasting as an academic subject for study, research, and teaching."^[7]

Barnouw is also known for his history of documentary films, and for his film aboutHiroshima and Nagasaki, which theL.A. Times said shook the industry. In 1971 Barnouw received aGeorge Polk Award.

He took interest in the history ofmagic and was the author of the bookThe Magician and the Cinema (1981) which received positive reviews.^[8] He was a friend to the magicianJohn Mulholland. While in high school, Barnouw catalogued Mulholland's books on magic.^[9] Since 1983, theOrganization of American Historians has awarded theErik Barnouw Award for films about American history.

In 2001, Barnouw died of an inoperable cancer inFair Haven, Vermont.^[10]The New York Times quotedSheldon Meyer, his former editor at Oxford University Press, "...Barnouw had an eye for the scoundrels, and the fakes, and the dangerous people. His genius reached generations of Americans across the radio airwaves, on the television screen and in the classroom." Upon readingMedia Lost and Found, published only months before Barrow's death,Ken Burns stated, "Barnouw is our keenest observer of the frighteningly complicated world of media. No one has seen more, no one sees more, no one understands more than Barnouw. I am a huge admirer."^[11]

• A Tower in Babel: A History of Broadcasting in the United States To 1933, Oxford University Press, 1966.
• The Golden Web: A History of Broadcasting in the United States 1933–1953, Oxford University Press, 1968^[12]
• The Image Empire: A History of Broadcasting in the United States from 1953, Oxford University Press, 1970.
• Tube of Plenty: The Evolution of American Television, Oxford University Press, 1976 (second updated edition, 1992).
• Indian Film, Oxford University Press, 1962 (First Edition, 1962, Oxford University Press).
• The Sponsor: Notes on a Modern Potentate, Oxford University Press, 1978 (new edition, 2005).
• Indian Film, Oxford University Press, 1980 (withS. Krishnaswamy).
• The Magician and the Cinema, Oxford University Press, 1981.
• International Encyclopedia of Communications, Oxford University Press, 1989. (editor)
• Documentary: A History of the Non-Fiction Film, Oxford University Press, 1993.
• Media Marathon, Duke University Press, 1996 (an autobiography).
• Media Lost and Found, Fordham University Press, 2001.

• Hiroshima Nagasaki August, 1945, 1970
  • This film compiles footage shot shortly after the bombing by both Japanese and American cameramen.
  • The original footage was classified as "Secret" for decades and was only released to U.S. National Archives in 1967.^[13]

• Erik Barnouw Award
• Erik Barnouw, 1908–2001
• The V.D. Radio Project atThe WNYC Archives

• 1908 births
• 2001 deaths
• Media historians
• 20th-century American historians
• American male non-fiction writers
• American documentary filmmakers
• Dutch emigrants to the United States
• Columbia University faculty
• Historians of magic (illusion)
• Horace Mann School alumni
• George Polk Award recipients
• People from Fair Haven, Vermont
• Princeton University alumni
• Writers Guild of America
• Bancroft Prize winners
• 20th-century American male writers
• Historians from New York (state)

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