Richard Beeman

I am sorry to learn that the beloved University of Pennsylvania professor Richard Beeman has passed away.  Beeman taught me the "American Revolution" when I was a senior in college and we read, among other works, Bernard Bailyn's Ideological Origins of the American Revolution and Forrest McDonald's Novus Ordo Seclorum, which are two outstanding works of intellectual history.  They each opened a world of ideology and history to me, which has continued to guide my thinking and me work.  Beeman was a fabulous teacher -- and he also seemed very young to me at the time, so this is a particularly sobering moment for me.  I last saw him in February 2002 when I was proud to tell him that I was following in Forrest McDonald's footsteps and teaching at the University of Alabama.  To which he responded something along the lines of, I suspect you're also departing from McDonald's footsteps, too!  He was a wonderful teacher and mentor and scholar, too.  His books include The Evolution of the Southern Backcountry (1984), The Varieties of Political Experience in Eighteenth-Century America (2004), Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution (2009), and Our Lives, Our Fortunes and Our Sacred Honor: The Forging of American Independence, 1774-1776 (2013).  Some years ago when I was posted a picture of the Lunenburg County Courthouse, I noted that Beeman's Evolution of the Southern Backcountry was based in Lunenburg County.

Beeman was a great teacher and a hell of a good guy.

Comments

[Dave Sidhu]

I'm very sorry to learn of Professor Beeman's passing. When I started at Penn, Professor Beeman, then Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, warmly welcomed the new class in College Hall. I never had a class with Professor Berman, but that single speech left a very positive impression on me. He was very generous, and an exceptional ambassador of the institution.