John Gurda
American historian
John Gurda (born 9 June 1947 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin) is an American writer and historian.
Gurda's book, The Making of Milwaukee, was turned into an Emmy Award-winning documentary series by Milwaukee PBS. He is an eight-time winner of the Wisconsin Historical Society’s Award of Merit. He is also a local history columnist for Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Education
John Gurda graduated Marquette University High School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He holds a B.A. in English from Boston College and M.A. in Cultural Geography from University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. Gurda has been described as a non-academic historian and is widely regarded as one of the most prolific historians of Milwaukee.
Professional Work
John Gurda is the author of twenty-two books, including histories of Milwaukee-area neighborhoods, industries, and places of worship. Gurda received his first corporate commission in 1981 from Northwestern Mutual. He grew his professional profile through works for a variety of nonprofit and community organizations in Milwaukee. The City of Milwaukee put out a popular series of neighborhood posters for which Gurda wrote descriptions and histories.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “John Gurda” as american historian. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american historian. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6236604. VIAF identifies the subject as 43131520. The Library of Congress control number is n80028736. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1947 and 1981.
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This entry incorporates text from “John Gurda” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.