Beard, Charles A. 1874-1948

HISTORIAN, EDUCATOR

Historian.

Along with frontier historian Frederick Jackson Turner, Charles A. Beard was in many ways responsible for creating the modern discipline of American history. His An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution (1913) put the study of the past on a modern, economically based foundation and established an interpretative tradition in history that continues to this day. Beard was also an important and controversial educator in the 1930s, author of the most commonly used history textbooks of the day, an activist who challenged political orthodoxy, and a leading proponent of change.

Background.

Beard grew up on a prosperous Indiana farm, immersed in the political and ethical certainties of midwestern Republicanism. At Spiceland Academy, a Quaker school not far from his home, he absorbed something of the Friends' vigorous nonconformity. In the midst of his undergraduate career at...

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