Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 1,507

This is the grave of Charles and Mary Beard.

Born in 1874 in Knightstown, Indiana, Charles Beard grew up reasonably well off. His father was a prosperous Quaker farmer who also dabbled in real estate and banking. The father was a classic Gilded Age conservative and after high school, Charles and his brother managed a little newspaper that basically pushed their father’s political positions. This was the era of the economically conservative Republican who had stopped caring about civil rights but cared very deeply about the specter of immigrants and the evils of drinking, which were one and the same really. After a couple of years, Beard decided he wanted higher education and went to DePauw University, graduating in 1898. He was very good at academics and so got to go to Oxford for further studies, which was quite uncommon in this era. He helped start Ruskin Hall there, which is a college at Oxford that was specifically for working class kids and today is the university’s adult learning college. His interest in reform politics really began at Oxford, as he moved away from his father’s deep Midwestern parochialism.

While at DePauw Beard met a woman named Mary Ritter. Born in 1876 in Indianapolis, Ritter grew up fairly well off as well. Her father was a lawyer and a temperance advocate. She went to the public schools and went to DePauw herself, graduating in 1897. They started dating. While he was at Oxford, she taught German at her old high school. They married in 1900 and she returned to Oxford with him for the end of his time there. She enrolled in graduate school with him at the same time at Columbia, studying sociology (they were both in the School of Political Science but that was really the social sciences broadly construed). After she joined him, she became highly interested in the British women’s suffrage movement, which means she got to know the Pankhursts. She became deeply involved in working class issues as well. This was a long way from Indiana. Both Charles and Mary moved far, far away intellectually from that Gilded Age reactionary world in which they grew up.

Charles returned to the United States in 1902 to pursue a doctorate in history from Columbia. Mary dropped out of her program in 1904, not because of some typical deal where Charles wanted her in the home raising children. Nope, she became a full-time suffrage worker. She did have a child in 1907 and they moved to a big mansion in Connecticut. They had money for sure. Mary stayed involved in suffrage though, working with Alice Paul and Lucy Burns in the National Woman’s Party and she helped organize the big 1913 suffrage parade in Washington. Unlike far too many suffragists, Beard was a big supporter of Black women in the movement as well and demanded they be allowed to participate in parades.

After Charles finished his doctorate, he joined the faculty at Columbia. He was a prolific writer, often working with Mary and not just in the Robert Caro “my wife is free labor” way. Beard’s 1913 book An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States may not be the most excitingly titled work of history ever written, but there were few more groundbreaking. I know it may seem crazy to think that the economic interests of the rich men who founded the nation were protected in the Constitution, but in 1913, it was actually seen as unbelievable and really quite controversial. The historical establishment was quite conservative and very influenced by Von Ranke and the other Germans. Naturally not everything in the book holds up upon a century of further investigation, but it helped pioneer the Progressive school of historical study in the U.S., along with the work of Carl Becker. The book was a bit too economically deterministic, but that’s not really the point here. This kind of history was critically important in moving the field in new directions and if it doesn’t all hold up, well neither does any other history written 110 years ago. Moreover, it had a very long shelf life, considered pretty much the gold standard of understanding the American Revolution and its aftermath until the 1950s, which is a good run.

Beard resigned from Columbia in 1917 over attacks on academic freedom around World War I, which was a real problem during that war. He came from a Quaker background as well, so was inclined toward peace. Behind of all this of course is that he didn’t need the money. Not only was An Economic Interpretation a big deal but he and Mary co-wrote a high school textbook in 1914 that brought in serious cash. Mary in fact published several works on her own, including A Short History of the Labor Movement, in 1920, and Woman as Force in History: A Study in Traditions and Realities, in 1946, which is considered her most important contribution as an individual author. She and Charles wrote together as well, not just the high school textbook but a lot else too. What’s interesting here is that they were open that they were equal collaborators. Again, this wasn’t the hidden wife thing. But reviewers and the historical profession gave all the real credit to Charles because they read sexism into the relationship. Not surprising of course, but it must have been frustrating for a strong feminist such as Mary Beard.

Beard also broke with Alice Paul after the success of the 19th Amendment. Paul turned her attention to declaring that there was no difference between women and men and pushing the Equal Rights Amendment. Paul was loathed by labor feminists for this because she actively opposed labor legislation that specifically helped women and later just became an anti-labor activist generally. So women such as Frances Perkins and Eleanor Roosevelt refused to support the ERA until very late in their lives. Beard was with them. She also opposed the idea that women were uniquely oppressed at all times. Her pioneering women’s history demonstrated a lot of positive stories about how women had shaped the nation.

So through the 20s and 30s, the Beards continued to write and put out important histories from a Progressive point of view. They both became major intellectual supporters of the New Deal, back in the day when people cared what historians thought about policy. Charles however became a sharp critique of FDR’s moves toward World War II. This was again his Quakerism in action. But Beard has somewhat unintentionally become influential on the right with those like Pat Buchanan who oppose American interventionism overseas.

I could go on, but this post is long and you get the point. These were important historians and activists who deserve to be remembered.

Charles Beard died in 1948, at the age of 73. Mary Beard died in 1958, at the age of 82.

Charles and Mary Beard are buried in Ferncliff Cemetery, Hartsdale, New York.

If you would like this series to visit other historians, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. Carl Becker is in Ithaca, New York and Herbert Bolton is in El Cerrito, California. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.