John Howard Lawson (September 25, 1894 – August 11, 1977) was an American playwright, screenwriter, arts critic, and cultural historian. After enjoying a relatively successful career writing plays that were staged on and off Broadway in the 1920s and '30s, Lawson relocated to Hollywood and began working in the motion picture industry. In 1933, he helped to organize the Screen Writers Guild and became its first president. In the ensuing years, he was credited with a number of notable screenplays including Blockade (1938), Action in the North Atlantic (1943), and Counter-Attack (1945).

In 1947, Lawson was one of the Hollywood Ten, the initial group of American film industry professionals to appear before Congress as part of an investigation into communist influence in Hollywood. Because he and the other nine screenwriters and directors refused to answer questions about their alleged Communist Party affiliation, they were cited for contempt of Congress. In 1948, Lawson was sentenced to a year in prison; he began serving in 1950. When he got out, he like the others found himself blacklisted by the studios. He wrote, uncredited, the screenplay for Cry, the Beloved Country (1951), an adaptation of Alan Paton's anti-apartheid novel about South Africa. With his Hollywood livelihood largely cut off, Lawson turned his attention to scholarship. He taught at several California universities. He authored books about drama, film-making, and cultural history. Unlike other members of the Hollywood Ten, Lawson was never "un-blacklisted". He remained a pariah in the film industry until his death in 1977.

John Howard Lawson was born on September 25, 1894, in New York City to affluent Jewish parents, Simeon Levy and Belle Hart. In the 1880s, Simeon had lived in Mexico City, where he started the Mexican Financier newspaper. After he met Belle, he moved to New York City and became an executive with Reuters. Before his first child was born, Simeon changed the family name from Levy to Lawson, later saying half-jokingly that he did it so he could "obtain reservations at expensive resort hotels", many of which refused to accommodate Jews.

When John was five, his mother died of breast cancer, which was a profound loss that scarred him. Belle had named her three children after people she admired: Wendell Holmes Lawson was named for the American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes; Lawson's sister Adelaide Jaffery Lawson was named for a friend of Belle's who was active in social causes; John Howard Lawson was named for prison reformer John Howard.

As a successful businessman, Simeon was able to send his children to private schools. At age seven, John attended the experimental school, The Playhouse, run by Elizabeth and Alexis Ferm. Later, he and his siblings went to Halstead School in Yonkers, New York and then to Cutler School in New Rochelle, New York. In 1906, Simeon sent his three children on a tour of Europe where they saw many theatrical productions. John took notes on the set designs, actors, and plays. In 1909, the children toured the United States and Canada.

Lawson entered Williams College in 1910. He contributed to The Williams College Monthly literary magazine. He edited the senior yearbook and was a member of the varsity debating team. But he also encountered antisemitism. During his sophomore year, he was denied election to The Williams College Monthly's editorial board because some students raised questions about his Jewish background. He would later say it was a good experience since it forced him "to begin his struggle to come to terms with his Jewish identity." As previously stated, his father had changed the family surname from Levy to Lawson; Simeon also insisted the family belong to a Christian church. They joined the First Church at 96th Street and Central Park West. As a boy, John recalled going to the house of a Christian schoolmate. He happened to mention his father's real name was Levy; he was not invited to that house again. But despite Simeon's wish for the Lawson family to assimilate, John would adhere to Jewish dietary laws all his life.

Lawson's reputation at Williams was as a good-natured iconoclast and a frequent speaker at undergraduate meetings. His older brother Wendell was meanwhile studying music and art in Germany. On a trip back to the U.S. in 1913, Wendell brought a copy of Karl Kautsky's The Class Struggle. According to one biographer, "This book gave [John Howard] Lawson his first knowledge of Marx and Marxism, with which he first disagreed, though he brought Kautsky's book to Socialist Club meetings and, to the faculty sponsor's annoyance, quoted from it as a basis for discussion." After graduating from Williams in 1914 with a B.A., he worked as a cable editor for Reuters from 1914 to 1915.

Lawson wrote his first play, A Hindoo Love Drama, while at Williams. Mary Kirkpatrick, faculty leader of the Williams College Drama Club, was impressed by this effort and became his first agent. Lawson was inspired to write three plays in 1915-16: Standards, The Spice of Life, and Servant-Master-Lover. Standards was bought by George M. Cohan and Sam Harris, and was given a tryout in Albany and Syracuse in 1915. It never made it to Broadway. Oliver Morosco produced Servant-Master-Lover in a run in Los Angeles, but received bad reviews.