John Francis Kieran (August 2, 1892 – December 10, 1981) was an American author, journalist, amateur naturalist and radio and television personality.

Early years

A native of

The Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New ...

, Kieran was the son of Dr. James M. Kieran and his wife, Katherine Donahue Kieran. Both of his parents were teachers, and his father was at one time president of

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 admin ...

. He had three sisters and three brothers. Kieran earned a Bachelor of Science degree (''

cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sou ...

'') from

Fordham University Fordham University () is a private Jesuit research university in New York City. Established in 1841 and named after the Fordham neighborhood of the Bronx in which its original campus is located, Fordham is the oldest Catholic and Jesuit un ...

. After graduating, he became a poultry farmer and taught school.

Career

Kieran began his newspaper career in 1915 as a sportswriter for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''. He continued on the sports beat during his entire career, working for a number of New York City newspapers and becoming one of the country's best known sports columnists. On January 4, 1943, his column moved to the

New York Sun ''The New York Sun'' is an American online newspaper published in Manhattan; from 2002 to 2008 it was a daily newspaper distributed in New York City. It debuted on April 16, 2002, adopting the name, motto, and masthead of the earlier New York ...

. During his 1927–1943 tenure as ''The Times senior sports columnist, he was profiled in the January 9, 1939, issue of ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and event (philosophy), events that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various me ...

'' magazine, which described him as "short, wiry, grey, bristly and brilliant". Although Kieran is widely credited with first applying the term " grand slam" to tennis, to describe the winning of all four major tennis tournaments in a calendar year, sports columnist Alan Gould had used the term in that connection almost two months before Kieran.Cf
"Sport Slants," Reading Eagle, July 18, 1933
with "Coming Up to the Net," NY Times, September 2, 1933. A noted "intellectual", he gained extensive personal popularity with his 10-year stint as a panelist on

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

's most widely heard radio quiz program ''

Information, Please! ''Information Please'' is an American radio quiz show, created by Dan Golenpaul, which aired on NBC from May 17, 1938, to April 22, 1951. The title was the contemporary phrase used to request from telephone operators what was then called "inform ...

'' (May 17, 1938 – June 25, 1948). His seemingly encyclopedic erudition and quick wit, combined with an aura of gentle modesty, endeared him to the listening audience and assured his place on the show. Along with fellow "intellectuals" Franklin P. Adams and host

Clifton Fadiman Clifton Paul "Kip" Fadiman (May 15, 1904 – June 20, 1999) was an American intellectual, author, editor, radio and television personality. He began his work with the radio, and switched to television later in his career. Background Born in Br ...

, Kieran entertained and educated radio audiences through the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

and the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...

. Within eight months of ''Information, Please!'' leaving the air, Kieran entered the new medium of television with TV's first widely syndicated show '' John Kieran's Kaleidoscope''. A 15-minute program produced from February 1949 to April 1952, ''John Kieran's Kaleidoscope'' presented its writer and host in his well-acquainted role as the learned and witty guide to the complexities of human knowledge. The 104 episodes touched on any and every subjectErickson, Hal (1989). ''Syndicated Television: The First Forty Years, 1947-1987''. McFarland & Company, Inc. . P. 75. from the mating habits of insects to the properties of magnetic attraction to the theories surrounding the creation of the

Solar System The Solar System Capitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Solar ...

. Kieran became a familiar face on 1950s television, guesting on numerous panel and quiz shows, including CBS' 13-week revival of ''Information, Please!'' as a 1952 summer replacement show, the only time it would be seen on TV. A dedicated

bird watcher Birdwatching, or birding, is the observing of birds, either as a recreational activity or as a form of citizen science. A birdwatcher may observe by using their naked eye, by using a visual enhancement device like binoculars or a telescope, by ...

and observer of the natural world, endowed with a breezy, colloquial writing style, Kieran enjoyed roaming Riverdale, his home area of the northwest Bronx, recording for posterity the changing scene at a time when the post-World War II housing boom was encroaching on, and eventually eliminating, formerly natural areas. His 1959 book ''

A Natural History of New York City A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes'' ...

'' has continued to be read for its observations on local geography as well as birds, reptiles, fish "in troubled waters" and mammals within the city limits. In 1964, at the age of 73, Kieran published his autobiography, ''Not Under Oath''.

Personal life

Kieran married Margaret Ford, a feature writer, September 15, 1947, in

Brookline, Massachusetts Brookline is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, in the United States, and part of the Boston metropolitan area. Brookline borders six of Boston's neighborhoods: Brighton, Allston, Fenway–Kenmore, Mission Hill, Jamaica Plain, and ...

. She was his second wife, his first wife having died five years earlier. A son, John Kieran Jr. (1921–2000), also appeared on 1950s TV, including a stint as a regular panelist in 1955 on another long-running quiz show, ''

Down You Go ''Down You Go'' is an American television game show originally broadcast on the DuMont Television Network. The Emmy Award-nominated series ran from 1951 to 1956 as a prime time series primarily hosted by Dr. Bergen Evans. The program aired in eleve ...

''. Kieran died on December 10, 1981, in

Rockport, Massachusetts Rockport is a seaside town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 6,992 in 2020. Rockport is located approximately northeast of Boston at the tip of the Cape Ann peninsula. Rockport borders Gloucester to its west, and ...

, at the age of 89 and is buried at Beech Grove Cemetery in Rockport.

Recognition

Kieran was inducted in the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association Hall of Fame in 1971. In 1973, Kieran was honored by the

Baseball Writers' Association of America The Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA) is a professional association for journalists writing about Major League Baseball for daily newspapers, magazines and qualifying websites. The organization was founded in 1908, and is known ...

with the J. G. Taylor Spink Award for distinguished

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

writing. Recipients of the Spink Award are recognized at the

National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is a history museum and hall of fame in Cooperstown, New York, operated by private interests. It serves as the central point of the history of baseball in the United States and displays baseball ...

in what is commonly referred to as the "writers wing" of the Hall of Fame. In 1987, six years after his death, the New York City Parks Department inaugurated ''The John Kieran Nature Trail'', which runs along some of the most scenic areas of the Bronx's

Van Cortlandt Park Van Cortlandt Park is a park located in the borough of the Bronx in New York City. Owned by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, it is managed with assistance from the Van Cortlandt Park Alliance. The park, the city's third-lar ...

. The trail is part of the former

Putnam Division The New York and Putnam Railroad, nicknamed the Old Put, was a railroad line that operated between the Bronx and Brewster in New York State. It was in close proximity to the Hudson River Railroad and New York and Harlem Railroad. All three cam ...

of the

New York Central Railroad The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected greater New York and Boston in the east with Chicago and St. Louis in the Mi ...

Books

*''The Story of the

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a multi ...

'' *''The American Sporting Scene'' *''Footnotes on Nature'' *''Nature Notes'' *''

John James Audubon John James Audubon (born Jean-Jacques Rabin; April 26, 1785 – January 27, 1851) was an American self-trained artist, naturalist, and ornithologist. His combined interests in art and ornithology turned into a plan to make a complete pictori ...

'', co-authored with his wife Margaret Kieran *''An Introduction to Nature'' (1946),

Garden City, New York Garden City is a village located on Long Island in Nassau County New York. It is the Greater Garden City area's anchor community. The population was 23,272 at the 2020 census. The Incorporated Village of Garden City is primarily located within ...

: Doubleday & Company, Inc. (Revised editions: 1948, 1950, 1952, 1954, 1955, 1966) *''An Introduction to Wildflowers'' (1965), Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc. *''An Introduction to Trees'' (1954), Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc. *''

'' (1959) *''Not Under Oath'' (1964),

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

Houghton Mifflin Co. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (; HMH) is an American publisher of textbooks, instructional technology materials, assessments, reference works, and fiction and non-fiction for both young readers and adults. The company is based in the Boston Financ ...

, his autobiography *''Poems I Remember: An Anthology of My Favorite Poems'' (1942), Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc. *''An Introduction to Birds'' (1946, 1950), Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc.

Sources

*Kieran, John (1964). ''Not Under Oath''. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. *Zerby, Jack.
John F. Kieran
" SABR Baseball Biography Project. SABR.org.

References

External links

*
Links to John Kieran-narrated documentaries at Archive.org

Baseball Hall of Fame profile

New York City Parks Department's description of the John Kieran Nature Trail
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kieran, John F. 1892 births 1981 deaths Television personalities from New York City American naturalists John Burroughs Medal recipients BBWAA Career Excellence Award recipients 20th-century American non-fiction writers Journalists from New York City 20th-century American male writers American male non-fiction writers Sportswriters from New York (state) Scientists from the Bronx 20th-century naturalists