Charles Beard and Mary

Beard, Charles and Mary, U.S. authors and historians who coauthored seven books, the best-known being The Rise of American Civilization (2 vols, 1927) and its sequels. Charles Austin Beard (1874–1948) taught history and political science at Columbia University from 1904 to 1917, when he resigned to protest U.S. participation in World War I. The author of more than 70 books, his most controversial was An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution (1913), in which he argued that the U.S. Constitution reflected the economic interests of its authors. Mary Ritter Beard (1876–1958), an author and leader of the women's rights movement, focused on the historical role of women.