TRAVEL JOURNALS

The 4.4 cubic feet of the various manuscripts and documents comprising the papers of Lewis C. Beck (1798-1853) span the years 1819 to 1853. Beck obtained his medical degree in 1817 and was initially trained as a physician. However, he developed what was to be a lifelong interest in the natural sciences, i.e., botany, chemistry, physics, geology. He pursued a professional career as teacher and lecturer in these fields.

During the early part of his professional life, approximately 1820 to 1830, Beck traveled extensively from his home state of New York to the mid western states of Illinois and Missouri. From his travels, Lewis beck kept detailed accounts of the people he met, sights he saw, and the cities and countryside of early nineteenth century America. These accounts were compiled and incorporated into much of his five volume set of diaries. He also began writing and published articles in the areas of botany and geology.

The main bulk of material from this collection spans the years, approximately, 1830 to 1849. Lewis Beck continued teaching and lecturing at such institutions as: Albany Medical College, the Vermont Academy of Medicine, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and Rutgers College in New Brunswick.

Beck's interest in the natural sciences went beyond teaching. He gave many addresses on these topics and published several textbooks and manuals in the areas of chemistry and botany. Also, in 1837, Beck was employed as mineralogist for the New York State Survey of Mineralogy. In his travels for this job, Beck also kept detailed travel journals.

The Lewis Beck papers are arranged into six series: TRAVEL JOURNALS; WRITINGS; SCRAPBOOKS AND CLIPPINGS; COMMONPLACE BOOKS; PHOTOGRAPHS; and, finally, PERSONAL AND FAMILY MISCELLANY. The series WRITINGS is further broken down into five sub-series: Reminiscences; Addresses; Lectures; Research Notes; and Manuscript Essays/Published Articles.

The collection's strength is the inclusion of Beck's many notebooks (all holograph manuscripts) which are included in the series WRITINGS. He writes with minute detail on the subjects of botany, geology, physics, and chemistry. One gets a perspective of how the natural sciences were taught and the philosophy of the sciences of that period. Also, many of Beck's notebooks contain his own pencil drawings which he used in his lectures. Beck had an avid interest in religion, and included are some of his addresses on the topic of temperance.

The series SCRAPBOOKS AND CLIPPINGS contains Beck's notebooks filled with clippings of personal family material and scientific information. Beck's COMMONPLACE BOOKS include information he put together for his own reference- biblical citations and information on poetry, literary notes, and scientific notes. The PHOTOGRAPHS are of several family members and PERSONAL AND FAMILY MISCELLANY contains a scattering of miscellaneous family material as well.

Special Collections and University Archives has a collection of Rutgers University faculty biographical files. Included is a file on Lewis Beck.