The Beards were active in helping to found the New School for Social Research, or The New School, in Greenwich Village, New York City, where the faculty would control its own membership. Enlarging upon his interest in urban affairs, he toured Japan and produced a volume of recommendations for the reconstruction of Tokyo after the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake. His financial independence was secured by "The Rise of American Civilization" (1927), and its two sequels, "America in Midpassage" (1939), and "The American Spirit" (1943), all of which written with his wife, Mary.