BEARD, CHARLES AUSTIN

BEARD, CHARLES AUSTIN

Few academicians achieve the public recognition and professional respect accorded to historian Charles Austin Beard. His polemic An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States stirred debate among fellow scholars and the U.S. public by contradicting the popular understanding of how and why the United States was founded. A brilliant, original thinker, Beard achieved a unique prominence among twentieth-century historians and political scientists.

Beard was born to well-to-do parents in Knightstown, Indiana, on November 27, 1874.

After graduating from Indiana’s DePauw University in 1898, he sailed to England to attend the University of Oxford. While at Oxford, he helped establish Ruskin Hall, a college for British working men that represented to Beard the liberation of the English masses from upperclass domination. In Beard’s mind, Ruskin Hall was a symbol and precursor of the true political democracy that would be ushered in by the industrial revolution.

In 1900 Beard returned briefly to the United
States to marry Mary Ritter. An intellectual in
her own right, Mary Ritter Beard became an
invaluable critic and collaborator in the more
than fifty books produced during Beard’s prolific
career. After his marriage, Beard resumed
his studies in England, then returned permanently
to the United States. He earned his doctor’s
degree from New York City’s Columbia
University and in 1904 accepted a teaching position
in political science at Columbia.
In 1913, Beard published An Economic Interpretation
of the Constitution of the United States.
The book created a mild sensation because it
suggested that the United States was not yet a
true democracy. Even more disturbing to some
U.S. citizens was Beard’s argument that the U.S.
Constitution was designed primarily to protect
the property rights of the wealthy capitalists
attending the Constitutional Convention. He
insisted that self-interest, not democratic principles,
motivated the Founding Fathers. To Beard,
the Constitution was a tribute to the power of
class, not democracy.
Although several U.S. politicians criticized
Beard’s unorthodox view of U.S. history, many
of his colleagues praised his innovative
approach. They understood how the private
economic interests of the colonial ruling class
could have had a far-reaching effect on the nascent
U.S. government.
In 1917 Beard protested the firing of several
Columbia University faculty members by
resigning his own position. Beard had been outraged
when the university dismissed his colleagues
for their refusal to support the United
States’ involvement in WORLD WAR I. In 1919 he
helped found the New School for Social
Research in New York City.
In 1927 Beard produced another remarkable
tome, The Rise of American Civilization. Coauthored
by his wife, it provided an overview of
U.S. history with further insights into the government’s
origins. This sprawling, two-volume
set was followed by America in Midpassage, in
1939, and The American Spirit, in 1942.
During the early 1930s, Beard wrote extensively
about the nature of historical knowledge.
He was particularly interested in historians’ personal
biases and the effect of those biases on the
presentation of historical facts.
Although Beard was closely associated with
the U.S. progressive movement and social
reforms, he disagreed with several aspects of
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT’s NEW DEAL programs.
In 1934 he began an acrimonious, decade-long
campaign against Roosevelt’s foreign policy. In
American Foreign Policy in the Making, 1932–
1940 (1946) and President Roosevelt and the
Coming of War (1948), Beard maintained that
the United States had backed Japan into a corner
and had forced the country into a war. His
extreme isolationist views damaged his professional
reputation to some extent.
Beard died in 1948, at the age of seventythree.
He is remembered as an accomplished
historian who influenced the way U.S. citizens
view their own history.

FURTHER READINGS
Noble, David W. 1985. The End of American History. Minneapolis:
Univ. of Minnesota Press.
Snider, Keith F. 2000. “Rethinking Public Administration’s
Roots in Pragmatism: The Case of Charles A. Beard.”
American Review of Public Administration 30 (June):
123–43.

CROSS-REFERENCES
Constitution of the United States; Constitution of the
United States “Constitutional Convention of 1787” (Sidebar);
Constitution of the United States “Federalists vs. Anti-
Federalists” (In Focus).