Victoria Johnson (born 1969) is an American author and historian. She is a Professor of Urban Policy and Planning at

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also admi ...

Early life and education

Johnson was born and raised in

Ithaca, New York Ithaca is a city in the Finger Lakes region of New York, United States. Situated on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake, Ithaca is the seat of Tompkins County and the largest community in the Ithaca metropolitan statistical area. It is named a ...

. She attended

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

for her Bachelor of Arts degree and

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

for a PhD in Sociology. Her sister,

Elizabeth Kostova Elizabeth Johnson Kostova (born December 26, 1964) is an American author best known for her debut novel ''The Historian''. Early life Elizabeth Johnson Kostova was born Elizabeth Johnson in New London, Connecticut, and raised in Knoxville, Tenne ...

, is also an author.

Career

After earning her PhD, Johnson taught at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

. While there, she published "''Backstage at the Revolution: How the Royal Paris Opera Survived the End of the Old Regime''" through the

University of Chicago Press The University of Chicago Press is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including ''The Chicago Manual of Style'', ...

. She was promoted from assistant to Associate Professor of Organizational Studies in 2011. Johnson eventually left the University of Michigan to join the faculty of Urban Policy and Planning at

. During the 2015–16 academic term, she was a fellow at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. Johnson was a Mellon Visiting Scholar at The

New York Botanical Garden The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) is a botanical garden at Bronx Park in the Bronx, New York City. Established in 1891, it is located on a site that contains a landscape with over one million living plants; the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, ...

’s Humanities Institute in 2016, where she conducted research on

David Hosack David Hosack (August 31, 1769 – December 22, 1835) was a noted American physician, botanist, and educator. He remains widely known as the doctor who tended to the fatal injuries of Alexander Hamilton after his duel with Aaron Burr in July 1 ...

. After her first proposal was rejected for being "too academic," she published a biography of David Hosack in 2018 titled "''American Eden: David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic.''" Her book was subsequently nominated for the

National Book Award for Nonfiction The National Book Award for Nonfiction is one of five U.S. annual National Book Awards, which are given by the National Book Foundation to recognize outstanding literary work by U.S. citizens. They are awards "by writers to writers". The panelists ...

Pulitzer Prize for History The Pulitzer Prize for History, administered by Columbia University, is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It has been presented since 1917 for a distinguished book about the history ...

, and LA Times Book Prize. The following year, she received the 2019 John Brinckerhoff Jackson Prize and was shortlisted for the

Cundill History Prize The Cundill History Prize (formerly the Cundill Prize in Historical Literature) was founded in 2008 by Peter Cundill to recognize and promote literary and academic achievement in history. The prize is presented annually to an author who has publis ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, Victoria Living people 1969 births Writers from Ithaca, New York Yale University alumni American women historians Hunter College faculty University of Michigan faculty Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni 21st-century American women writers Historians from New York (state) 21st-century American historians