Dates

• Existence: 1940-

Biographical Statement

David E. Maas was born February 10, 1940 in Los Angeles, CA, where he spent the first four years of his childhood. His father was a naval officer, and his mother, a homemaker. Between the ages of 3 and 4, Maassaw two additions to the family: his brothers Richard and Donald. After Donald was born, the family moved to Santa Anna, CA. When Maas reached the third grade, the family moved to San Francisco, where Maas’s third brother, Bobby, was born. Church was a regular affair for the family. In the years that followed, the family moved to Los Altos, CA; San Diego, CA; Arlington, VA; and Silver Spring, MD. In Maryland, Maas joined the Christian Service Brigade at his church.

In 1955, the family moved to the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, where Maas’s father completed his Master’s degree in one year’s time and, shortly afterward, suffered his first heart attack. Around this time, Maas participated in Junior Achievement in high school and became president of his youth group. He credits the youth director with profoundly impacting his spiritual life, and in 1957, he dedicated his life to Jesus. After graduation, Maas moved to Glenview, IL, near the hospital from which his father was soon released only to suffer a second heart attack.

In the fall of 1957, Maas began his college studies at the Moody Bible Institute, where he met the woman who would later become his wife. In 1958, Maas’s father retired from the Navy and decided to move the family back to California, hoping his eldest son would join them and enroll at UCLA. Maas had different plans, however. He decided to get an apartment in Chicagoand reenter Moody. In 1960, while Maas was in California visiting his family, his father died of a heart attack. Maas later returned to Wheaton College and married in 1961. In the years leading up to this point, he worked as a dishwasher, stock clerk, bus driver, Sunday School teacher, and P.E. teacher at a private Christian school.

Maas received his B.A. in history from WheatonCollegein 1962. He completed his M.A. in history two years later at California State University at Los Angeles, and in 1972, he completed his Ph.D. in history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Maas joined the Wheaton College faculty as a professor of history in 1970 and retired in 2010, having been granted emeritus status. Among the courses he taught during his forty years at Wheaton were World Civilization, Seminars to support World Civilization, American Foreign Relations, American Constitutional History, American Survey Beginning to Civil War, American Survey Civil War to Present, Seminar on American Revolution, and Seminar on Civil War.

Throughout his career, Maas’s professional research interests centered on the “losers” and overlooked average people in American history, whose stories he uncovered by turning to primary documents in local history. The early history of Wheaton College and Wheaton Collegeand Knox College students in the Civil War were focal points of his research.

Maas was a member of the Conference on Faith and History. He also ran a professional photography business from 1972 until 2004. He is married to Bobbie and has four adult children, David, Pam, Beth, and Daniel.

Citation:

“David E. Maas.” History. Wheaton College. Web. 15 Nov. 2010. “Faculty Emeriti.” History. Wheaton College. Web. 15 Nov. 2010. Maas, David E. “Autobiography.” David E. Maas Papers (SC-214), Wheaton College Special Collections, Wheaton, Illinois. 15 Jan. 1962. Print. Maas, David E.. “Self-Appraisal.” David E. Maas Papers (SC-214), Wheaton College Special Collections, Wheaton, Illinois. Print.

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