Bertram Wyatt-Brown facts for kids

Bertram Wyatt-Brown (born March 19, 1932 – died November 5, 2012) was a famous historian. He studied the history of the American South. He was a professor at the University of Florida for many years. He also taught at Case Western Reserve University.

Wyatt-Brown was very interested in how "honor" worked in Southern society. He studied this idea among all kinds of people. He also wrote about the history of the Percy family. This family included famous writers like William Alexander Percy and Walker Percy.

Early Life and Schooling

Bertram Wyatt-Brown was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. His father, Hunter Wyatt-Brown, was an Episcopal priest. He later became a bishop.

Wyatt-Brown went to Saint James School in Maryland. After that, he studied at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. He earned his first degree there in 1953.

Military Service and More Education

After college, he joined the Navy Reserve. He served from 1953 to 1955. He became a lieutenant junior grade.

After his military service, he went to King's College, Cambridge in England. He earned a second degree there in 1957. Later, he got his Ph.D. (a high-level degree) in history. He earned it from Johns Hopkins University in 1963. He studied under C. Vann Woodward, who was also a famous historian of the South.

What Did He Do?

Bertram Wyatt-Brown was a professor at the University of Florida. He taught there from 1983 to 2004. He was also a visiting scholar at Johns Hopkins University.

Before that, he taught at several other universities. These included Colorado State University and Case Western Reserve University. He also taught at the University of Wisconsin and William and Mary.

His Writings and Awards

During his career, Wyatt-Brown wrote ten books. He also wrote more than 90 articles and essays. He reviewed nearly 150 books for different publications.

He was on the board for Ohio History, a scholarly journal. He also helped edit a book series for Louisiana State Press. He led several history groups. These included the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic. He also led the Southern Historical Association.

At the time of his death, he was working on a book. It was called Honor and America's Wars: From the Revolution to Iraq. In 1983, he was a finalist for two big awards. These were the American Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. This was for his most famous book, Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old South (1982). This book looked at how the idea of "honor" shaped the lives of white people in the Old South.

Family Life

In 1962, Bertram Wyatt-Brown married Anne Jewett Marbury. They met at Johns Hopkins. They had two daughters together, named Laura and Natalie.

Wyatt-Brown passed away on November 5, 2012.

His Books

• Lewis Tappan and the Evangelical War against Slavery, 1969.
• The American People in the Antebellum South, (editor) 1973.
• Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old South, 1982.
• Yankee Saints and Southern Sinners, 1985.
• Honor and Violence in the Old South, 1986.
• The House of Percy: Honor, Melancholy, and Imagination in a Southern Family, 1994.
• The Literary Percys: Family History, Gender, and the Southern Imagination, 1994.
• The Shaping of Southern Culture: Honor, Grace, and War, 1760s-1880s, 2001.
• Hearts of Darkness: Wellsprings of a Southern Literary Tradition, 2003.
• Virginia's Civil War, (editor with Peter Wallenstein) 2004.