Calvin Beale knew more about the demographics of rural America than
anyone. I only spoke to him once, but I relied on much of his written
material during research for my book: How To Find Your Ideal Country
Home. He was everything I want in a person working in government:
passionate about his subject, superior in knowledge, gracious in
service. He leaves a void that will be hard to fill.
Calvin L. Beale, Demographer With a Feel for Rural America, Dies at 85
By FELICITY BARRINGER
Published: September 2, 2008
Calvin L. Beale, a government demographer who was among the first to
recognize the transformation of America’s rural landscape from farms
to a mixture of farms, industry and vacation homes, died on Monday in
Washington. He was 85.
A niece, Carol Rudolph, said the cause was colon cancer.
Mr. Beale had worked at the federal Agriculture Department for more
than half a century, becoming a senior demographer there.
An unpretentious man in a profession not noted for its glamour, Mr.
Beale — his highest academic degree was a master’s in sociology from
the University of Wisconsin — still developed a cult following among
his peers. They marveled not just at his mastery of the theoretical
tools, but also his first-hand feel for rural America.
He traveled to 2,500 counties (of 3,140) around the country and knew
everything from the most common surnames in a given place to the kind
of leaves carved above the courthouse steps. Kenneth M. Johnson, a
professor of sociology at the University of New Hampshire, called Mr.
Beale “the Michael Jordan of rural research.”
Mr. Beale’s greatest single professional contribution, Professor
Johnson said, was figuring out in the 1960s that decades of decline in
rural population were being reversed in some areas. Mr. Beale saw that
hydroelectric dams in the Ozarks created reservoirs that in turn drew
vacationers, some of whom stayed; he noticed industries like textiles,
meatpacking and chemicals moving into areas that had been entirely
agricultural.
When confronted with Mr. Beale’s reports of a population rebound,
Professor Johnson said: “People didn’t believe it. It was so contrary
to 150 years of American history.” When the first of the new data came
out from the 1970 census, Mr. Beale was vindicated.
Mr. Beale, who is survived by three nephews in addition to his niece,
was often a mentor to younger colleagues, like John Cromartie, who
eventually worked with him at the Agriculture Department.
Mr. Cromartie, a geographer with the department’s resource and rural
economics division, said Mr. Beale’s development of population
theories came from his travels as much as from any computer model.
Most demographers, Mr. Cromartie said, “start with the theories and
test them.” But, he added, Mr. Beale’s on-the-ground knowledge of the
overlooked byways of the country allowed him to “start from the bottom
and show everyone the big picture from that perspective.”
Often it was the quirky or forgotten people that drew the
demographer’s eye. Sprinkled throughout “A Taste of the Country,” a
collection of Mr. Beale’s writings published by the Rand Corporation
in 1990, are glimpses of little-noticed history.
He wrote, for example, of a mixed-race people called Melungeons,
reputedly of white, black and Indian descent. They are found from the
Tidewater areas to the Piedmont and the Allegheny-Cumberland Plateaus.
“Some are landless, some landed,” he wrote. “But they are all marginal
men — wary until recently of being black, aspiring where possible to
be white and subject to rejection and scorn on either hand.”
Another chapter is devoted entirely to a Creole fire company in Mobile
City, Ala., founded in 1819 and still operating when Mr. Beale visited
in 1963.