Social studies for social reform: Charles Beard's vision of history and social studies education

Charles Beard was arguably the most influential historian in the United States during the first half of the twentieth century. He was also a key figure in the theoretical conceptualization of social studies education. The vision of social studies he recommended for schools, which he articulated most thoroughly during the 1930s whit serving on the American Historical Associations's Commission of the Social Studies, was influenced greatly by his notion of the nature of historical inquiry and understanding, but, more fundamentally still, by his longstanding, deep-seated disposition as a progressive reformer.