ABOUT THIS BOOK

Abolitionist, fanatic, terrorist, freedom fighter, alleged murderer—all of those labels fit John Brown. Yet he also qualified as a mid-nineteenth-century celebrity. Reserved only for a few, celebrity in Brown’s time was, in historian Carolyn Eastman’s words, a quality “of being well known, an attribute, a degree of popularity and fame—the state of being celebrated by others,” as Brown certainly was.

Brown’s lifespan covered most of the period between the Revolution and the Civil War, a time of the still-early beginnings of the United States. Only then had his kind of “celebrity” started to matter. From different economic and moral perspectives, politically aware Americans clashed over different visions for the future of the country. At that time, any disruptive figure might be taken as a barometer of the progress or the decline of the republic. A function of the widely varying newspapers and magazines of that day, celebrity offered Americans an angle of vision, happily or not, as to who they were or were becoming or believed themselves to be—as if by a mirror reflection.

In The Day They Hanged Old Brown, John Van Atta examines the creation of celebrity in John Brown’s time and how it differed from modern day perceptions. Yet, as applicable as the concept of celebrity is in this case, the story of Brown’s notoriety represents far more. To his admirers, Brown was not merely a celebrity; he was a hero and, after his sacrificial death, a martyr. Not all celebrities rise to such levels. This book traces the meaning of heroism and martyrdom—as well as the opposite side of that coin, villainy—and suggests that John Brown’s story and legacy helped to redefine these concepts for many Americans during the era of the Civil War, before modern historians began to deliberate him.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

John R. Van Atta, who received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Virginia, specializes in the Early Republic period of U.S. History (1776-1865) as well as nineteenth-century America generally. He taught at Hiram College in Ohio and, for thirty-six years, at Brunswick School in Greenwich, Connecticut, where he held the Oaklawn Chair in American History until retiring in 2020. He is the author of four books, Securing the West: Politics, Public Lands, and the Fate of the Old Republic, 1785-1850 (2014); Wolf by the Ears: The Missouri Crisis, 1819-1821 (2015); and Charging Up San Juan Hill: Theodore Roosevelt and the Making of Imperial America (2018), all published by the Johns Hopkins University Press.

REVIEWS

“Why another book on John Brown? In these pages, John R. Van Atta offers an engrossing answer by analyzing how Civil War-era Americans made John Brown the man into a political celebrity for their polarized times. Van Atta offers a compelling history of Brown and his legacy as well as a thoughtful examination of how it matters for our understanding of today's fractured political culture. Van Atta's work epitomizes how history can be a dialogue with the past and present. Beautifully written and carefully researched, The Day They Hanged Old Brown is the work of a masterful historian.”—Christopher Childers, Pittsburg State University, author of The Webster-Hayne Debate: Defining Nationhood in the Early American Republic

“Fluidly written (sometimes movingly so), historiographically informed, and free of jargon, Van Atta’s morally engaged yet nuanced narrative is thoroughly rooted in primary-source evidence.The Day They Hanged Old Brown draws connections across time and space, utilizing the concepts of celebrity, heroism, villainy, and martyrdom and their expression in 1859 and beyond.”—Samuel J. Watson, United States Military Academy, author of Peacekeepers and Conquerors: The Army Officer Corps on the American Frontier, 1821-1846

“What to do with the old man with the piercing gray eyes and long straggly beard? Should we elevate him to heroic status for championing Black freedom? Alternatively, might we condemn him for his violent, ill-fated raid at Harper’s Ferry that many argued foreshadowed civil war? Regardless of how we choose to remember him, John Brown paid the price for his beliefs. His hanging in December 1859 became a critical component of a continuing legacy of extensive scholarship-pro and con-in both the academic and popular press. John Van Atta breathes fresh air into his subject with an approach that focuses on the issue of celebrity versus villainy. His extensively researched and well written volume takes a new and penetrating look at ‘Old Brown’ within the framework of sectional 19th-century popular culture, including manhood and masculinity. Reaching back into the days of ‘Bleeding Kansas,’ the author crafts a clear perspective of the evolution of John Brown the Martyr (“His soul goes marching on!”) and leaves the reader space to weigh in with an individual viewpoint. A genuine contribution to the field, Van Atta’s fine study should receive serious consideration from the casual reader as well as the veteran scholar.”—John M. Belohlavek, Professor Emeritus, University of South Florida, author of Patriots, Prostitutes, and Spies: Women and theMexican-American War.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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