Richard Beeman
Professor of History
Dr. Richard R. Beeman has been on the faculty of the Department of History at Penn for thirty-six years. He is an historian of the American Revolutionary Era, and has written five books and several dozen articles on aspects of America 's political and constitutional history in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. His fifth book, The Varieties of Political Experience in Eighteenth Century America, is a wide-ranging, interpretive study of the uncertain and confused origins of democracy in America. It was published in the Spring of 2004 as part of the McNeil Series in Early American History by the University of Pennsylvania Press. He has served as Chair of the Department of History, Associate Dean in SAS responsible for the School's humanities and social sciences departments, and as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. He also continues to serve in his role as Vice-Chair of the Academic Advisory Board and as Chair of the Program and Exhibits Committee of the Board of Trustees of the National Constitution Center.
Professor Beeman's teaching activities at Penn have ranged over numerous topics dealing with the History of the United States from the founding of the colonies up to the Civil War. His current teaching responsibilities include: the first half of the introductory undergraduate survey course, "History of the United States, 1607-1865"; an upper level undergraduate course on "Creation of the Constitution;" and graduate courses on politics and political culture in eighteenth and early nineteenth century America.
Professor Beeman has received numerous awards, including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, and the Huntington Library. He has served as a Fulbright Professor in the United Kingdom and as Vyvian Harmsworth Distinguished Professor of American History at Oxford University. His is currently writing a history of the Constitutional Convention of 1787.
B.A.: University of California, Berkeley, 1964
M.A.: College of William and Mary, 1965
Ph.D.: University of Chicago (History), 1968
Curriculum Vitae
