Howard K. Beale

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Howard Kennedy Beale (April 8, 1899 – December 27, 1959) was an American historian and professor of history at the University of North Carolina and the University of Wisconsin. He specialized in nineteenth and twentieth-century American history, particularly the Reconstruction Era. He was also a noted civil libertarian and advocate for academic freedom.[1]

Biography

Beale was born in Chicago to Frank A. and Nellie Kennedy Beale.[2] In 1921 he graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a PhB in English from the University of Chicago.[3] Beale received an M.A. and PhD from Harvard University.

Scholarly impact

In his scholarly work, Beale emphasized economic factors. He advanced what came to be known as the 'Beale Thesis,' that Reconstruction was the effort of Northeastern business leaders to gain control of the federal government for their own ends by eliminating Southern and Western agrarian competition through Reconstruction (targeting the former) and the 'bloody shirt' patriotism appeal (targeting the latter).[4] He also published a study of Theodore Roosevelt's foreign policy (the Shaw Lectures on Diplomatic History delivered at the Johns Hopkins University) and edited the diaries of Edward Bates (Attorney General) and Gideon Welles (Secretary of the Navy), who were members of Abraham Lincoln's cabinet. He edited a notable memorial work of essays by leading historians in honor of Charles A. Beard. In 1953, he delivered the Albert Shaw Lectures on Diplomatic History. Beale was an influence on the young William Appleman Williams at the University of Wisconsin.[5]

In 1950 Beale spoke out against the call by Conyers Read, President of the American Historical Association, for historians to be enlisted in the ideological struggle against totalitarianism.[6]

Bibliography

  • "The Diary of Edward Bates, 1859-1866", Editor, (Washington, D. C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1933)
  • "Are American Teachers Free?: An Analysis of Restraints Upon the Freedom of Teaching in American Schools" (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1936)
  • A History of Freedom of Teaching in American Schools (New York: Scribner's Sons, 1941)
  • Charles A. Beard: An Appraisal, Editor, (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1954)
  • Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of America to World Power (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1956)
  • The Critical Year: A Study of Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction (New York: F. Ungar, 1958)
  • "Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson", Editor, (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1960)

References

  1. ↑ Paul M. Buhle and Edward Rice-Maxim, William Appleman Williams: The Tragedy of Empire (New York: Routledge, 1995): 39; Michael Fellman, Views from the Dark Side of American History (LSU Press, 2011): 20.
  2. ↑ Biography at Book Rags
  3. ↑ The University of Chicago magazine, Volumes 7–8. University of Chicago. Alumni Association, University of Chicago. Alumni Council. pp. 188–190. Retrieved 26 March 2011. 
  4. ↑ T. Harry Williams, "An Analysis of Some Reconstruction Attitudes," Journal of Southern History, XII (November 1946): 470.
  5. ↑ Paul M. Buhle and Edward Rice-Maxim, William Appleman Williams: The Tragedy of Empire (New York: Routledge, 1995): 39.
  6. ↑ Ian R. Tyrrell, The Absent Marx: Class Analysis and Liberal History in Twentieth Century America (Westport, Conn., 1986), p. 82
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