Carleton Beals
| Carleton Beals | |
|---|---|
| Born | November 13, 1893 Medicine Lodge, Kansas |
| Died | April 4, 1979 |
| Education |
University of California, Berkeley; Columbia University |
| Occupation | Journalist, book author, historian, political activist |
| Notable credit(s) | The only foreign journalist who interviewed General Augusto Sandino during Nicaragua's 1927–33 war against US military occupation |
| Spouse(s) | Lilian Beals |
| Relatives | Carrie Nation, grandmother |
Carleton Beals (November 13, 1893 – April 4, 1979) was an American journalist, author, historian, and political activist with special interests in Latin America. A major journalistic coup for him was his interview with Nicaraguan rebel, Augusto Sandino in February 1928. In the 1920s he was part of the cosmopolitan group of intellectuals, artists, and journalists in Mexico City. He remained an active, prolific, and politically engaged leftist journalist and is the subject of a scholarly biography.
Beals was born in Medicine Lodge, Kansas. 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 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 master's degree in 1917.
"{Beals} is now the best informed and the most awkward living writer on Latin America." (Time Magazine, April 25, 1938)
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 I 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.
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