Ralph Albert Beals

Background

Ralph Beals was born on March 29, 1899, in Deming, New Mexico, the son of Nathan Albert and Alice May Seeley Beals. His father, a grocer, moved the family to Santa Ana, California.

Education

Ralph Beals attended the local public schools in Santa Ana, California. During World War I he initially served as a civilian librarian at Camp Cody, New Mexico, but subsequently enlisted in the army as a private. After the war Beals attended the University of California, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and received the B. A. in 1921. He then worked for two years, as secretary to the president of the university before moving east to attend Harvard University. He received the M. A. in English in 1925 and remained at the university as an English instructor.

Career

Beals left Harvard in 1928 to serve as instructor in English at New York University, where he taught until 1933, when he became assistant to Morse A. Cartwright, director of the American Association for Adult Education. For six years thereafter he supervised the national programs of the association, in addition to lecturing, writing, and editing. He wrote Aspects of Post-Collegiate Education (1935); The Literature of Adult Education (1941), with Leon Brody; and edited, with Cartwright, The Journal of Adult Education (1937 - 1938). At the association he worked closely with librarians and became convinced of the library's potential as a social agency. By 1939 he had decided upon a career in librarianship, and he enrolled in the University of Chicago Graduate Library School "to gain respectability in this field. " He left Chicago in 1940 to become assistant librarian at the Washington, D. C. , Public Library, where he attracted favorable attention through his efforts to promote closer cooperation between the public library and the government libraries in the city.

Beals returned to the University of Chicago in 1942 as library director and professor of library science. The library was deteriorating because of overcrowding and poor organization, and he confronted the problems with zeal. The university's president, Robert M. Hutchins, stated that Beals "did the work of two - or even ten - men with intelligence, dignity, and dispatch. "Beals reorganized the library's administrative structure, consolidated several departmental libraries, eliminated duplication of services, and appointed subject bibliographers in the humanities and the social sciences. But perhaps most important, he restored faculty and student confidence in the library.

In 1945 he left the directorship to become dean of the Graduate Library School. Although he remained in the position only one year, Beals instituted curriculum changes that reflected his philosophy of the library as a medium for social communication. On October 1, 1946, Beals succeeded Franklin F. Hopper as the fifth director of the New York Public Library. Beals was attracted by the enormous potential and challenge of the library, which, with an internationally renowned reference collection and sixty branches, served more people than any library in the world. At the time of Beals's appointment the library faced difficult problems - endowment income had eroded, the library's appropriation from the city was a meager fifty-five cents per capita, and staff salaries were not competitive. Prior to accepting the position, Beals told the library's board of trustees that, if employed, he would not "stand in awe" of them and would "argue for what needs to be done. " The trustees unanimously agreed with his position, and with this mandate Beals began his tenure.

He secured a 20 percent raise for library employees effective January 1, 1947, bringing an immediate boost in morale, and he arranged socials and staff meetings to increase contact between the library's reference and circulation departments. To bring the community into closer contact with the library, he created a permanent citizens advisory committee. Beals's efforts to improve the library's financial position were particularly successful. He induced the city to double its annual appropriation for the library; and as president of the New York State Library Association he successfully lobbied for New York's first law extending state aid to public libraries, perhaps his most important and lasting contribution. In Beals's last year as director, the New York Public Library received state aid in excess of $1 million, although state aid was proportionately more significant for smaller upstate libraries. Moreover, in 1948, he inaugurated an annual appeal for funds to support the privately endowed reference collections.

Throughout Beals's varied career, associates and friends noted his scholarly appearance and manner as well as his seemingly endless enthusiasm and energy. He never abandoned his concept of the library as an agency for educating the public, and his accomplishments mirrored this belief. Beals died at the New England Medical Center in Boston, Massachussets

Achievements

• Ralph Beals served as library director of the University of Chicago; dean of the Graduate Library School and director of the New York Public Library. Beals wrote: Aspects of Post-Collegiate Education (1935); The Literature of Adult Education (1941); and edited The Journal of Adult Education (1937 - 1938).

Works

More photos

• book

  • Aspects of post-collegiate education,

    (Older book, but in pristine condition - no markings or to...)

Membership

Ralph Beals served as president of the New York State Library Association.

Connections

At Harvard, Beals met Alice Bertha Stone, daughter of a Boston manufacturer, Harry Joseph Stone. They were married on June 12, 1928, and had one daughter.

Father:

Nathan Albert Beals

Mother:

Alice May (Seeley) Beals

Wife:

Alice (Stone) Beals