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“Old School Days” on the Middle Border, 1849–1859: The Mary Payne Beard Letters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Peter A. Soderbergh*
Affiliation:
School of Education of the University of Pittsburgh

Extract

In south mound cemetery at New Castle, Indiana, lie the remains of William Henry Harrison Beard, his wife Mary Payne Beard, and one of their two sons, Clarence Beard. The fourth member of that Hoosier family, whose name elevates a simple fact of life and death to a level of national significance, was historian Charles Austin Beard (1874–1948).

Type
Notes and Documents I
Copyright
Copyright © 1968 by New York University 

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References

Notes

1. Beard attended the Quaker academy at Spiceland Township, Indiana, from 1880 to 1890 (age 6 to 16). He was graduated from Knights-town (Indiana) Academy, a public school, in 1891. In 1895 Beard entered DePauw University, a Methodist institution, at Greencastle and was awarded a Ph.B. degree in 1898. Details may be found in Phillips, Clifton J., “The Indiana Education of Charles A. Beard,” Indiana Magazine of History, LV (March 1959), 123.Google Scholar

2. A brief review of Beard's activities in this regard may be found in Soderbergh, Peter A., “Charles A. Beard and the Public Schools, 1909–1939,” History of Education Quarterly, V (December 1965), 241–52.Google Scholar

3. Some of Beard's family background is developed in Ratcliff, Richard P., Charles A. Beard, 1874–1948: A Native of Henry County, Indiana (New Castle, Indiana: Privately printed, 1966). Deeper treatments may be found in Lindenberger, Ruth, Beard Family History and Genealogy (Lawrence, Kansas: The World Company, 1939), and among the papers available on the Beards in The Library, Guilford College, Greensboro, North Carolina.Google Scholar

4. Beard did graduate work in history at Oxford (1898–1899, 1900 1902) and Cornell (1899–1900). He received his M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia in 1903 and 1904 respectively and remained on the Columbia faculty until 1917.Google Scholar

5. Mrs. Miriam Beard Vagts to the author, September 28, 1967, in author's possession, 4.Google Scholar

6. See “A Collection of Materials on Charles, A. and Beard, Mary R. Presented to DePauw University by their Children William Beard and Mrs. Alfred Vagts, 1962“; Microfilm Number 1, DePauw University Archives, Greencastle, Indiana. I am indebted to Beard, Dr. and Vagts, Mrs. for their permission to use portions of the collection and to the staff of the Archives of DePauw University and Indian Methodism for permission to use these portions of the collection.Google Scholar

7. Beard, Charles A. and Beard, Mary R., History of the United States (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1949), p. 373; original edition 1921.Google Scholar

8. Ibid., p. 373.Google Scholar

9. Beard, Charles A. and Beard, Mary R., The Rise of American Civilization (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1927), I, 812.Google Scholar

10. Esarey, Logan, A History of Indiana (Indianapolis: B. F. Bowen and Company, 1918), II, 683714.Google Scholar

11. Thornbrough, Emma L., Indiana in the Civil War Era, 1850–1880 (In dianapolis: Indiana Historical Bureau and Indiana Historical Society 1965), 15, 541–42.Google Scholar

12. Beard, Charles A. and Beard, Mary R., American Citizenship (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1919), Chapter XVII, “The Work on Rural Government,” pp. 271–86; original edition, 1914.Google Scholar

13. For an interpretation of Beard's work on the Commission, see Soderbergh, Peter A., “Charles A. Beard and the Commission on the Social Studies, 1929–1933: A Reappraisal,” Social Education, XXXI (October 1967), 465–68, 477.Google Scholar

14. Vagts, Miriam Beard Mrs. to the author, September 3, 1966, in author's possession, 2.Google Scholar