Inventory of Larkin Lewis Beeman Papers - Page 1

Description:	Larkin Lewis Beeman PapersIndiana State University ArchivesUAC 97Scope and Content: The Larkin Lewis Beeman Collection contains .5 cubic feet of handwrittenclass notes and seating charts from Beemans days as a student and a teacher in the 1890s and176 photographs of students, faculty, groups and organizations at the Indiana State NormalSchool from the 1880s to 1919. The earliest dated photograph is from 1881 although there area number of tintypes which may well date earlier. This collection contains some of the oldestextant material about the history of Indiana State University. The collection has been arrangedin two series. The photographs are especially valuable because most are labeled with names,although the majority are undated. Classnotes and Seating Charts There are eight volumes and10 individual pages of handwritten notes that Beeman took as a student at Indiana StateNormal School and that he used in his own teaching. Included are notes from an EnglishGrammar class in 1892 from either Mary Anderson or John B. Wisely, a Botany class in 1896from Instructor Butterfield, a Physiology class in 1896-1897 from Louis J. Rettger, and aPsychology class (undated) from Albert Charman. Two of the volumes contain pencil drawings.There are two seating charts dated 1897 where Beeman has added comments about thetemperaments of his students. Photographs The 176 photographs are primarily portraits ofindividual students and faculty most are labeled with names but undated. There are alsophotographs of groups and organizations. In a 1955 letter, Beeman notes that the MysticalNovem group photograph shows the organization which was the beginning of fraternities andsororities at Indiana State. The photograph of the 1897 class day exercises shows the studentsin costume who appeared in Shakespearean scenes. Two other photographs show freshmen forthe Spring Term 1891 and the group of students who boarded at the same home whileattending the Normal School in 1893.Biographical Information: Larkin Lewis Beeman was a member of the Class of 1897 at IndianaState Normal School. Born in 1870, he was from Marion Township in Boone County, Indiana. Agraduate of Indiana University in 1903, Beeman did graduate work at Indiana, Wisconsin, andCalifornia. He taught history and political science for forty-eight years, last teaching at SantaAna California College in 1942. When he donated this collection of photographs and classnotesto Indiana State University in July of 1955, he was living in Santa Ana and was almost eighty-fiveyears old. He remembered Normal School teachers Elwood Kemp, John B. Wisely, William W.Wood, John J. Schlicher, Oscar Kelso, Louis Rettger, Charles Curry, and Mary Anderson. Anotherletter from Beeman in 1957 states that one of his hobbies was writing letters: My greatestpleasure is meeting former students and teachers, meeting and talking with them. I correspondwith two who were in the first grade in a country school I taught in Boone County, Indiana in1893 or 64 years ago, and with three who were in the first high school I taught at inMichigantown, Indiana 60 years ago and others all down the years since. Their remembrancesof me and their kind words today are `better than riches, better than gold.
Source:	http://indstate.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/isuarchive/id/53347
Collection:	Indiana State University Archives

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