Beito was born in
Minneapolis, Minnesota. He received a
B.A. in history from the
University of Minnesota in 1980 and a Ph.D. in history from the
University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1986. Since 1994, he has taught at the
University of Alabama, where he is a professor in history. He married
Linda Royster Beito on June 11, 1997, and they live in
Northport, Alabama. Beito's research covers a wide range of topics in American history including
race,
tax revolts, the private provision of
infrastructure,
mutual aid, and the political philosophies of
Zora Neale Hurston,
Rose Wilder Lane, and
Isabel Paterson. Beito has published in the
Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times,
Washington Examiner,
Washington Examiner,
The Hill, as well as the
Journal of Southern History,
y" among other scholarly journals. He has received fellowships from the
Earhart Foundation, the
John M. Olin Foundation, and the
Institute for Humane Studies. In February 2007, Beito was appointed to chair the Alabama State Advisory Committee of the
United States Commission on Civil Rights. In April, 2008, the Committee had an open meeting at the
16th Street Baptist Church in
Birmingham which focused on
eminent domain as a possible civi rights issue. It followed this up with another open meeting in April 2009 in
Montgomery. The testimony resulted in a national briefing by Beito for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. generated stories by
ABC News,
Fox News, and other outlets. Beito's biography of Dr. T.R.M. Howard received widespread praise. Mark Bauerlein in a review for the
Wall Street Journal called it "compelling," civil rights leader
Julian Bond characterized it as "wonderfully told," former NAACP head
Benjamin L. Hooks lauded it as a "must read," and
Shelby Steele found it to be "richly detailed."
T.R.M. Howard: Doctor, Entrepreneur, Civil Rights Pioneer won the best book award in the category for biography by the
American Book Fest and the
Independent Book Publishers Association. His most recent book, ''The New Deal's War on the Bill of Rights: The Untold Story of FDR's Concentration Camps, Censorship and Mass Surveillance'' has received praise from a broad spectrum of scholars including
Ellen Schrecker,
Randy Barnett, and
Burton W. Folsom Jr. Several historians have favorably reviewed Beito's most recent book,
FDR: A New Political Life.
David Michaelis, the author Eleanor, states that in "this instructive and revelatory history, David Beito takes us further than his predecessors along the breadcrumb path into Franklin Roosevelt’s ‘thickly forested interior’.”
Burton W. Folsom Jr. asserts that "David Beito’s wonderful new work is to make a historiographic leap from the Dark Ages to the Atomic Age." In his assessment of the book,
Richard K. Vedder, the author of Out of Work: Government and Unemployment in the Twentieth Century, "David Beito, one of the premier chroniclers of American life in the first half of the twentieth century, has worked his magic again." == Publications ==