VAN ATTA, John Robert
Brunswick School
Greenwich, CT
100 Maher Avenue
john_van_atta@brunswickschool.org
EDUCATION
Ph.D., University of Virginia. Charlottesville, Virginia. August 1982
Major: United States History (middle period, 1776-1861).
Minor: Medieval England.
American Constitutional Law.
Ph.D. dissertation: “Securing the West: Public Lands and Political Economy in America, 1784 to 1841."
Supervisor: Merrill D. Peterson.
M.A., University of Virginia. Charlottesville, Virginia. August 1977.
Major: United States History. Minor: English History.
M.A. thesis: “Raising the Continental Quota in Revolutionary Virginia, 1780-1781.”
Supervisor: William W. Abbot.
B.A., summa cum laude, Honors Program., Ball State University. Muncie, Indiana. May 1975.
Major: History. Minors: Political Science. Spanish.
CURRENT POSITION
Brunswick School. Greenwich, Connecticut (since September 1984).
Master Teacher (Since 1996). Annual special stipend for travel, research, and writing. Opportunity to present several school assembly lectures every year. Regular teaching load, including sections of A. P. American History, regular U. S. History, and Constitutional Law. Supervision of Brunswick Forum and Cliosophic Society. 12th grade advising. 20-30 college recommendations per year.
Chairman, Department of History (1990-1996). Responsibility for leading and supervising a department of 11 middle- and upper-school history faculty. Curriculum revision and management. Participation in faculty evaluation and hiring decisions. Departmental budget and book ordering, publications, and public relations. Coordination of program and activities with the History Department at Brunswick’s sister school, Greenwich Academy. Teaching responsibility for A. P. American History, A. P. American Government and Politics, Constitutional Law, and an occasional section of 10th grade European History. 11th and 12th grade advising. College recommendations.
Instructor, Upper School History (1984-1990). Full time appointment. Teaching duties for 11th and 12th grades included A. P. American History, regular United States History, Constitutional Law, Economics, and senior seminars. Founded the Brunswick Forum (a regular current events discussion group) and Cliosophic Society (a history club sponsoring on-campus lectures, films, and occasional social events). 11th grade advising. College recommendations.
PREVIOUS POSITIONS
Hiram College. Hiram, Ohio. September 1982-June 1984.
Assistant Professor of History. 2-year appointment. Duties included upper level courses in American Colonial History, 19th Century United States History, American Westward Expansion, and American Legal History. Also helped to design a lower level introductory course, “Interpreting the American Experience,” focusing on recurring tensions between individualism and community ideals from colonial times to the present. Hiram is a 4-year coeducational liberal arts institution, privately endowed and non-sectarian.
The Tandem School. Charlottesville, Virginia. September 1981-June 1982.
History Teacher. Offered 11th and 12th grade surveys in United States History and Modern European History, along with Western Civilization for 8th graders. Tandem, at that time, was a private coeducational secondary school of 80-100 pupils. The school philosophy emphasized close student-faculty interaction, mutual respect, and freedom to students in proportion to their acceptance of personal and academic responsibilities.
Hampden-Sydney College. Hampden-Sydney, Virginia. Spring semester 1981.
Temporary Instructor of History. Substitute for a regular faculty member who had fallen ill. Taught second semester sections of United States History survey, from the Civil War to the present. The job required restructuring of the course, preparation and delivery of regular 50-minute lectures, and assumption of all grading for about 80 students, all males.
University of Virginia. Charlottesville, Virginia. Spring semesters, 1979, 1980; summer term, 1981.
Graduate Instructor in History. Presented a survey of United States History from colonial times to the present, wrote and revised a series of 75-minute lectures, devised and graded historical writing exercises, and taught a total of 112 undergraduate students, mostly non-history majors.
BOOKS
Van Atta, John R. A Place for Boys: Brunswick School and the Building of Young Men. Greenwich, Ct., 2001. Pp. xv, 238. (published for Brunswick School by The Stinehour Press, Lunenburg, Vermont.) Library of Congress Card Number: 2001117636. ISBN: 0-9711615-0-X).
ARTICLES
Van Atta, John R. "Ernest Thompson Seton and the Woodcraft Indians in Greenwich," Greenwich History (2002), 9-27.
Van Atta, John R. “Western Lands and the Political Economy of Henry Clay’s American System, 1819-1832,” Journal of the Early Republic. 21 (Winter 2001), 633-665.
Van Atta, John R. “Brown, Ethan Allen;” Clopton, John;” Dana, Samuel Whittelsey;” “Doddridge, Philip;” “Edwards, Ninian;” “Foot, Samuel Augustus;” “Harper, William;” “Jackson, James;” “Langdon, John;” “Miller, Stephen Decatur;” “Moore, Thomas Patrick;” “Morrow, Jeremiah;” “Overton, John;” “Pleasants, James;” “Preston, William Campbell;” “Sergeant, John;” “Smith, Oliver Hampton;” “Tazewell, Littleton Waller;” “Thompson, Waddy;” “Vesey, Denmark;” “Wilkins, William;” and “Williams, David Rogerson;” in John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, eds., American National Biography. 20 vols. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Van Atta, John R. “Conscription in Revolutionary Virginia: The Case of Culpeper County, 1780-1781,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. 92 (July 1984), 263-281.
Van Atta, John R. “Insights to the Art of Studying History,” Indiana Social Studies Quarterly. XXIX (Spring 1976), 18-31.
Van Atta, John R. “Caution, Crisis, and Exile: The Uprooting of the American Loyalists,” Indiana Social Studies Quarterly. 27 (Winter 1974-75), 44-56.
RESEARCH-IN-PROGRESS
“Securing the West: Public Lands and Political Economy in Pre-Civil War America” (book-length manuscript).
“Homes for the Homeless: Land Reform Agitation in Pre-Civil War Salem, Ohio” (unfinished article manuscript).