Carleton Beals
Encyclopedia
Carleton Beals was a radical American journalist, author, historian, and a crusader with special interests in Latin America
.
. His father, Leon Eli Beals (1864–1941), lawyer and journalist, was the stepson of Carrie Nation
, the temperance movement
advocate. His mother was Elvina Sybilla Blickensderfer (1867–?). His brother, Ralph Leon Beals (1901–85), was the first anthropologist at University of California, Los Angeles
.
The family moved from Kansas when Beals was age three, and he attended school in Pasadena, California
. After graduating from high school in 1911, he worked a variety of different jobs while attending the University of California, Berkeley
where he studied engineering and mining. He won the Bonnheim Essay Prize and the Bryce History Essay Prize. After graduating cum laude, he attended Columbia University
on a graduate scholarship, earning a Masters degree in 1917.
draft evader
. Upon release, he decided to go see the world, and with what little money he had, Beals and his wife Lillian drove to Mexico. There, he founded the English Preparatory Institute, and taught at the American High School. They left Mexico in 1921 for Europe where Beals studied at the University of Madrid
, and then the University of Rome. Back in Mexico, he became a correspondent for The Nation
, separated from his wife, and became romantically involved with photographer Tina Modotti
's sister, Mercedes.
In February 1928, Oswald Garrison Villard
, editor of The Nation, sent Beals to Nicaragua
to write a series of articles. He became notable as the only foreign journalist who interviewed General Augusto Sandino during Nicaragua's 1927–33 war against US military occupation.
In all, Beals wrote over 200 magazine articles for publications such as the New Republic
and Harper's Magazine
. Beal also wrote more than 45 books, including on history, geography, and travel. Some of his books are written for the juvenile audience. His autobiography, Glass Houses, was published by J.B. Lippincott Company in 1938. In 1931, Beals was awarded the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
Fellowship for biographies. His biography subjects included Porfirio Díaz
, Huey P. Long
, Roberto de la Selva, Stephen F. Austin
, John Eliot
, Carrie Nation
, and Leon Trotsky
.
During his career, Beals witnessed Mexican revolutions, lectured on Shakespeare, and was held incommunicado by a Mexican general. His travels took him to French Morocco, Tunisia
, Algiers
, Greece
, Turkey
, the Soviet Union
, Germany
, and the Caribbean
. He was a Ford Hall Forum
speaker in 1936, and a member of the American Committee for the Defense of Leon Trotsky
in 1937. The following year, Time Magazine
called Beals, "the best informed and the most awkward living writer on Latin America."
. Beals was a hero to the young people of Cuba
.
In his later year, Beals lived on Fire Tower Road in Killingworth, Connecticut
. He is buried in Killingworth's Evergreen Cemetery.
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
.
Early years
Beals was born in Medicine Lodge, KansasMedicine Lodge, Kansas
Medicine Lodge is the most populous city in and the county seat of Barber County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 2,009.-19th century:...
. His father, Leon Eli Beals (1864–1941), lawyer and journalist, was the stepson of Carrie Nation
Carrie Nation
Carrie Amelia Moore Nation was a member of the temperance movement, which opposed alcohol in pre-Prohibition America. She is particularly noteworthy for promoting her viewpoint through vandalism. On many occasions Nation would enter an alcohol-serving establishment and attack the bar with a hatchet...
, the temperance movement
Temperance movement
A temperance movement is a social movement urging reduced use of alcoholic beverages. Temperance movements may criticize excessive alcohol use, promote complete abstinence , or pressure the government to enact anti-alcohol legislation or complete prohibition of alcohol.-Temperance movement by...
advocate. His mother was Elvina Sybilla Blickensderfer (1867–?). His brother, Ralph Leon Beals (1901–85), was the first anthropologist at University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...
.
The family moved from Kansas when Beals was age three, and he attended school in Pasadena, California
Pasadena, California
Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and Tournament of Roses Parade, Pasadena is the home to many scientific and cultural institutions, including the California Institute of Technology , the Jet...
. After graduating from high school in 1911, he worked a variety of different jobs while attending the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
where he studied engineering and mining. He won the Bonnheim Essay Prize and the Bryce History Essay Prize. After graduating cum laude, he attended Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
on a graduate scholarship, earning a Masters degree in 1917.
Career
Unable to find work as a writer, Beals took a job with Standard Oil Company, but it did not suit him. In 1918, he spent a brief period of time in jail as a World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
draft evader
Draft dodger
Draft evasion is a term that refers to an intentional failure to comply with the military conscription policies of the nation to which he or she is subject...
. Upon release, he decided to go see the world, and with what little money he had, Beals and his wife Lillian drove to Mexico. There, he founded the English Preparatory Institute, and taught at the American High School. They left Mexico in 1921 for Europe where Beals studied at the University of Madrid
Complutense University of Madrid
The Complutense University of Madrid is a university in Madrid, and one of the oldest universities in the world. It is located on a sprawling campus that occupies the entirety of the Ciudad Universitaria district of Madrid, with annexes in the district of Somosaguas in the neighboring city of...
, and then the University of Rome. Back in Mexico, he became a correspondent for The Nation
The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
, separated from his wife, and became romantically involved with photographer Tina Modotti
Tina Modotti
Tina Modotti was an Italian photographer, model, actress, and revolutionary political activist.- Early life :Modotti was born Assunta Adelaide Luigia Modotti Mondini in Udine, Friuli, Italy...
's sister, Mercedes.
In February 1928, Oswald Garrison Villard
Oswald Garrison Villard
Oswald Garrison Villard was an American journalist. He provided a rare direct link between the anti-imperialism of the late 19th century and the conservative Old Right of the 1930s and 1940s.-Biography:...
, editor of The Nation, sent Beals to Nicaragua
Nicaragua
Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...
to write a series of articles. He became notable as the only foreign journalist who interviewed General Augusto Sandino during Nicaragua's 1927–33 war against US military occupation.
In all, Beals wrote over 200 magazine articles for publications such as the New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
and Harper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts, with a generally left-wing perspective. It is the second-oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. . The current editor is Ellen Rosenbush, who replaced Roger Hodge in January 2010...
. Beal also wrote more than 45 books, including on history, geography, and travel. Some of his books are written for the juvenile audience. His autobiography, Glass Houses, was published by J.B. Lippincott Company in 1938. In 1931, Beals was awarded the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was founded in 1925 by Mr. and Mrs. Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son, who died April 26, 1922...
Fellowship for biographies. His biography subjects included Porfirio Díaz
Porfirio Díaz
José de la Cruz Porfirio Díaz Mori was a Mexican-American War volunteer and French intervention hero, an accomplished general and the President of Mexico continuously from 1876 to 1911, with the exception of a brief term in 1876 when he left Juan N...
, Huey P. Long
Huey Long
Huey Pierce Long, Jr. , nicknamed The Kingfish, served as the 40th Governor of Louisiana from 1928–1932 and as a U.S. Senator from 1932 to 1935. A Democrat, he was noted for his radical populist policies. Though a backer of Franklin D...
, Roberto de la Selva, Stephen F. Austin
Stephen F. Austin
Stephen Fuller Austin was born in Virginia and raised in southeastern Missouri. He was known as the Father of Texas, led the second, but first legal and ultimately successful colonization of the region by bringing 300 families from the United States. The capital of Texas, Austin in Travis County,...
, John Eliot
John Eliot (missionary)
John Eliot was a Puritan missionary to the American Indians. His efforts earned him the designation “the Indian apostle.”-English education and Massachusetts ministry:...
, Carrie Nation
Carrie Nation
Carrie Amelia Moore Nation was a member of the temperance movement, which opposed alcohol in pre-Prohibition America. She is particularly noteworthy for promoting her viewpoint through vandalism. On many occasions Nation would enter an alcohol-serving establishment and attack the bar with a hatchet...
, and Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
.
During his career, Beals witnessed Mexican revolutions, lectured on Shakespeare, and was held incommunicado by a Mexican general. His travels took him to French Morocco, Tunisia
Tunisia
Tunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...
, Algiers
Algiers
' is the capital and largest city of Algeria. According to the 1998 census, the population of the city proper was 1,519,570 and that of the urban agglomeration was 2,135,630. In 2009, the population was about 3,500,000...
, Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
, Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
, the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, and the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
. He was a Ford Hall Forum
Ford Hall Forum
The Ford Hall Forum is the oldest free public lecture series in the United States. Founded in 1908, it continues to host open lectures and discussions in the Greater Boston area. Some of the more well-known past speakers include Maya Angelou, Isaac Asimov, Noam Chomsky, Alan Dershowitz, W. E. B...
speaker in 1936, and a member of the American Committee for the Defense of Leon Trotsky
American Committee for the Defense of Leon Trotsky
The American Committee for the Defense of Leon Trotsky was a pseudo-judicial process set up by American Marxists following the first of the Moscow Trials. It had no powers of subpeona, nor official imprimatur from any government...
in 1937. The following year, Time Magazine
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
called Beals, "the best informed and the most awkward living writer on Latin America."
Later years
During the 1960s, he supported the Fair Play for Cuba CommitteeFair Play for Cuba Committee
The Fair Play for Cuba Committee was an activist group set up in New York in April 1960. The FPCC's purpose was to provide grassroots support for the Cuban Revolution against attacks by the United States government, once Fidel Castro began openly admitting his commitment to Marxism and began the...
. Beals was a hero to the young people of Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
.
In his later year, Beals lived on Fire Tower Road in Killingworth, Connecticut
Killingworth, Connecticut
Killingworth is a town in Middlesex County, Connecticut, United States. The town's name can easily be confused with another Connecticut town, Killingly; or a Vermont ski area, Killington. The population was 6,018 at the 2000 census.-History:...
. He is buried in Killingworth's Evergreen Cemetery.
Partial bibliography
- 1921, The Mexican as he is
- 1923, Rome or death; the story of fascism
- 1923, Mexico; an interpretation (Agrarian land reform in MexicoAgrarian land reform in MexicoBefore the 1910 Mexican Revolution that overthrew Porfirio Díaz, most of the land was owned by a single elite ruling class. Legally there was no slavery or serfdom; however, those with heavy debts, Indian wage workers, or peasants, were essentially debt-slaves to the landowners. A small percentage...
) - 1925, Tasks awaiting President Calles of Mexico
- 1926, The church problem in Mexico
- 1927, Brimstone and chili: a book of personal experiences in the Southwest and in Mexico
- 1929, Mexico's new leader
- 1929, Destroying Victor
- 1930, The coming struggle for Latin America
- 1931, Mexican maze, with illustrations by Diego RiveraDiego RiveraDiego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez was a prominent Mexican painter born in Guanajuato, Guanajuato, an active communist, and husband of Frida Kahlo . His large wall works in fresco helped establish the Mexican Mural Movement in...
- 1932, Porfirio Díaz. Dictator of Mexico
- 1932, Banana gold
- 1933, The Crime of Cuba, with photographs by Walker EvansWalker EvansWalker Evans was an American photographer best known for his work for the Farm Security Administration documenting the effects of the Great Depression. Much of Evans's work from the FSA period uses the large-format, 8x10-inch camera...
- 1934, Fire on the Andes
- 1934, Black river
- 1935, Rifle rule in Cuba
- 1935, The story of Huey P. Long
- 1936, The stones awake: a novel of Mexico
- 1936, Prologue to Cuban freedom
- 1937, America south
- 1937, The new genre of Roberto de la Selva
- 1937, The drug eaters of the High Andes
- 1938, Glass houses, ten years of free-lancing
- 1939, American earth; the biography of a nation
- 1939, The coming struggle for Latin America
- 1940, Pan America
- 1943, Dawn over the Amazon
- 1948, Lands of the dawning morrow: the awakening from Rio Grande to Cape Horn
- 1949, The long land: Chile
- 1953, First men of America
- 1953, Stephen F. Austin, Father of Texas
- 1955, Our Yankee heritage: New England's contribution to American civilazation
- 1956, Adventure of the western sea, illustrated by Jacob LandauJacob LandauJacob Charles "Jack" Landau was an American journalist, attorney, government official, and free-speech activist. He was the founding first Executive Director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press....
- 1956, Taste of glory; a novel
- 1957, John Eliot, the man who loved the Indians (July 3l, 1604 – May 20, 1690)
- 1958, House in Mexico
- 1960, Cuba's Revolution: The First Year
- 1960, Brass-knuckle crusade; the great Know-Nothing conspiracy, 1820–1860
- 1961, Nomads and empire builders; native peoples and cultures of South America
- 1962, Cyclone Carry, the story of Carry Nation
- 1963, Latin America: world in revolution
- 1963, Eagles of the Andes: South American struggles for independence
- 1965, War within a war; the Confederacy against itself
- 1967, Land of the Mayas; yesterday and today
- 1968, The great revolt and its leaders: the history of popular American uprisings in the 1890s
- 1969, The Case of Leon Trotsky [Lev Davydovič Trockij]: report of hearings on the charges made against him in the Moscow trails
- 1970, Stories told by the Aztecs before the Spaniards came
- 1970, The nature of revolution
- 1970, Great guerrilla warriors
- 1970, Colonial Rhode Island
- 1973, The incredible Incas: yesterday and today.