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1.00
Name of creator
Biographical history
George Raimes Beach, Jr. was the son of the Montclair attorney, entrepreneur and corporate official George Raimes Beach (b. 1875) originally from Jersey City, N.J. and profiled in Who's Who in Commerce and Industry. Beach, Sr., married Lucy McBride on April 30, 1901, and George, Jr., was the first of two children, the other was Katherine L. George Jr. was a 1926 graduate of Princeton University. He made his career in chemicals, with Dupont, and retired in 1965 having been Midwest regional manager of the E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. electrochemicals division.
Mr. Beach lived in Lake Forest for many years, served as an alderman, a term as mayor from 1960 to 1963, and was also a trustee of Lake Forest College acting as board chair from 1971 to 1974.
Between the time of his retirement in 1965 and 1980 he traveled extensively and wrote, for private distribution to his friends, several travel narratives. His later writings after 1975 also featured his second spouse, Mary, who sometimes did the writing in the early 1970s. He also had a home -- Charduar -- in western Virginia, at Bacova (zip 24412), not far from Hot Springs, where he died, having given up by then his Lake Forest house.
Sources:
Who's Who in Commerce and Industry, 10th interrnational ed. Chicago: Marquis, 1957, 75.
Chicago Tribune obituary, August 28, 1990
Name of creator
Biographical history
Content and structure elements
Scope and content
This collection consists of five travel narratives by George R. Beach (ca. 1903-1990), a long-time Lake Forest resident, mayor of the City, and chair of the College's Board of Trustees from 1971 to 1974.
These journal-type narratives, which foremost are full of personal insights and stories of George Beach, also prove in displaying the spirit of the era of elite jet travel between the 1960s and 1980s. This stretch of time, as made clear through the Beach's words, shows a distinct evolution of how people traveled.
The early journals are characterized by discussing the easy ability to move about the globe and the greater availability of jet travel compared to other methods such as train and ship travel. Still, as time goes by, the reader will see how the Beaches covered a large array of countries and places to visit even as the act of travel changes and progresses. Overall, these diaries complement an equal number of other such writings by the Beaches that are cataloged.
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Languages of the material
- English
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Custodial history
Immediate source of acquisition
Donations 1970s - 1990s