W. Dean Eastman

In 2019 Eastman received the James E Stewart Torch Bearer Award, presented by the Montford Point Marines of America Association, for humanitarian service and historical research and writing in the field of African-American history.

In 2018 Eastman received the Nelson Marquis Who's Who Lifetime Achievement Award.

In 2007, The Eighteenth-Century Records of the Boston Overseers of the Poor was published by the Colonial Society of Massachusetts. Edited by Eric G. Nellis and Anne Decker, it is based on manuscript records of the Boston Overseers of the Poor which the Massachusetts Historical Society obtained from the City of Boston in 1957.

In 2005 Eastman appeared as a contestant on ABC's Who Wants to Be a Millionaire as part of a special tribute to America's teachers.

He is an elected fellow at both the Massachusetts Historical Society and Colonial Society of Massachusetts, and served an eight-year term as one of eight members of Adams Family Papers Administration Committee from 2005–2013. He also served on the boards of the Public Broadcasting System (PBS), the National Teacher Source Advisory Group from 2004–2005, and the Massachusetts Civil Liberties Union Education Steering Committee from 1990–2010.

In 2004, Eastman developed this interdisciplinary project where students designed and built a stone wall.  They created their own colonial measuring device, called the "Gunther chain", using measurement units (called ‘chains’ or ‘perches’). Construction of the stone wall began in September and was completed during the Christmas school vacation with all of the students volunteering during every cold week.

In the spring of 2002, Kevin McGrath applied for, and received, a Preservation Grant from the Northeast Massachusetts Regional Library System. This grant paid for the services of Margaret Cornell, a professional Archivist, who did a complete survey and helped organize and describe the collection.

In 2001 Eastman was featured in the PBS series "Only A Teacher: The History of Teaching in the United States". In 2004 he was selected as the first annual Preserve America Massachusetts History Teacher of the Year. In 2005 the National Park Service awarded him the Prince Saunders Education Award for Exemplary Contribution in the Field of African-American Historical Research.

In 2001, Eastman and Kevin McGrath established the Beverly Educational Archives. The archives contained education documents dating from 1763 to the present. Records collected in the archives include yearbooks, student publications, school committee reports, municipal documents, census records, city directories, letters, photographs, meeting minutes, microfilmed newspapers, and more. The purpose of the Beverly Educational Archives is to appraise, collect, organize, describe, preserve, and make accessible records of permanent administrative, legal, fiscal and historical value to Beverly High School, Beverly Public Schools and the City of Beverly.

In 2000 he received an ALM degree with a concentration in Government from Harvard University. Under advisor Stephan Thernstrom, his thesis topic was "The Influence of Immigration on the Development of Civic Education in the United States from 1880-1925".

Eastman has been selected for Who's Who in the World and Who's Who in America in every year from 2000–2015. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award by Marquis Who's Who in 2017. In 2018 Eastman was awarded the Albert Nelson Marquis Who's Who Lifetime Achievement Award. For almost twenty years Eastman has been selected for Marquis Who's Who in America and Who's Who in the World.

PATH I, in the Spring of 2000, focused on the "history of the history" of the Boston Massacre, including the analysis of first-hand accounts, newspapers, diaries, court documents, Paul Revere's original metal etching of the event, an interview with Hiller Zobel (noted judge and author of a book on the Boston Massacre), and the incremental examination of American History textbooks’ coverage of the event during each decade from 1810 to 1980.  Students visited the Boston Athenaeum, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Massachusetts State Archives, and the Harvard School of Education's Gutman Library's Special Collections.

Eastman is the co-creator of primaryresearch.org, which was founded in 1999 to highlight and benefit the endeavor of local history study among public school students.

Primaryresearch.org was founded by Eastman and McGrath in 1999. The website was initially funded by a Documentary Heritage Grant from the Massachusetts Historical Records Advisory Board.

The formation of the Archives was a collaborative effort, starting with a financial gift from the Beverly High School Class of 1994 (led by Meredith Haviland) and the generous assistance of masonry students from North Shore Regional Vocational High School led by teachers Mac Seaver and David Collins, who helped construct the room for the Archives.

The National Junior Chamber of Commerce selected Eastman as one of the Outstanding Young Men of America in 1982. From 1987-1991 Eastman served as grant reader/evaluator for the Commission of the Bicentennial of the United States Constitution, chaired by former Chief Justice Warren Burger. In 1989 he was selected as the John F. Kennedy Presidential Award Winner, "Outstanding Teacher on the Theme of the American Presidency" and as the Massachusetts Christa McAuliffe Fellow in 1990. Eastman was featured in the book I Am a Teacher by David Marquis (Simon & Schuster). In 1991, he was selected by the Disney Channel as one of 36 teachers in the nation to receive the American Teacher Award. He was featured on the Disney Channel on November 24, 1991. In 1991 Eastman was featured on NBC's Today Show for his work with homeless students, and was introduced on NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. He also appeared twice as a guest on Tom Bergeron's WBZ TV Show "People Are Talking". He served as a grant reader/evaluator for the United States Department of Education from 1992–1994. In 1992 he helped develop, research, and host a ten-part series on immigration for Massachusetts Educational Television (MCET). In 1996, Eastman's local history class was featured in an article "History Close to Home" in the fall 1996 issue of Teaching Tolerance, published by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Eastman was the recipient of the Drake University Alumni Achievement Award in 1991, and Drake's School of Education's Outstanding Alumni Award in 1994. He was a visiting professor of education at Drake from 1994–1995, and was a guest lecturer in 2005 and 2010. He was profiled in Drake Blue (Winter 2005).

In the 1980s, Eastman and Beverly Social Studies Coordinator Anthony Witwicki shared a vision of a social studies lab: a room set up on the same principles as a science or language lab, and a place where students could get hands-on training. A stipend of $15,000 that Eastman received as a recipient of the Massachusetts Christa McAuliffe Fellowship helped bring to fruition the social studies lab vision he shared with Witwicki.

Eastman received an MSE and Certificate of Advanced Graduate Study at Springfield College (1976, 1977).

Eastman started teaching in the Beverly, Massachusetts Public Schools upon graduation from Drake University in 1970. He taught social studies at Memorial Junior High School and at Beverly High School. He retired from teaching in 2006.

In addition to teaching, Eastman was a successful track coach. From 1970-1981 he coached at Beverly High School, Springfield College and the University of Massachusetts Lowell. While at Springfield College from 1974-1976 he was a Graduate-Assistant Track and Field coach under legendary coach Vern Cox. From 1975 to 1980 he coached eight Division II NCAA Track and Field All-Americans. From 1980-1983 Eastman served as Goodwill Ambassador for the United States Department of State, coaching Track and Field in Mexico.

Eastman coached track and field for fourteen years on a number of levels, including high school, college, and internationally. Early in his coaching career, he was fortunate to come under the tutelage of Fred Wilt, an Olympic runner, Sullivan Award winner and a respected coach. From 1970 to 1981, in conjunction with teaching, Eastman coached at Beverly High School, Springfield College, Salem State College, and the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. While at Springfield College (1974-1976) he was a Graduate-Assistant Track and Field Coach under coach Vern Cox. From 1975 to 1980, Eastman coached eight Division II NCAA Track and Field All-Americans. During the summers from 1980 to 1983, he served as Goodwill Ambassador for the United States Department of State, coaching Track and Field in Mexico.

Eastman attended Drake University from 1966–1970. He was a member of the Bulldog Track team as a freshman. Eastman graduated from Drake in 1970 with a BSE in Social Science.

Weston Dean Eastman (born 1948) is a nationally known educator and writer who has instituted numerous innovative "hands-on" classroom teaching approaches and helped initiate a number of collaborations between numerous historical archives and public schools.

He was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts on February 22, 1948, the son of Weston D. and Harriet Eastman. Eastman attended the Andover, Massachusetts Public Schools and, while a student at Andover High School, was a member of the Latin Club, a library assistant, won third place in the science fair, and won 8 athletic letters in football, indoor track, and outdoor track. In his senior year, Andover High won the Massachusetts All-Class Track and Field Championship. Eastman placed in the 200-meter dash and was a member of the 800-meter relay team that placed second. His classmates at Andover High included Tonight Show host Jay Leno and Emmy Award-winning soap opera writer Lorraine Broderick.

As part of their participation in the project, students created a database of about 1900 African-Americans living on Beacon Hill's lower slope from 1835 to 1855. The demographic information concerning these individuals was compiled by cross-referencing data from Boston City Directories, U.S. Census Records and Boston Poll Tax records. This database was paramount in linking their names with hundreds mentioned in articles in the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator on Boston's voluntary associations.  These were digitized and indexed as an aid to our research into the civic engagement of African-Americans living in that neighborhood.

In addition, students adapted an 1852 map of Boston's Beacon Hill to GIS format.  They were now able to connect names in the database with parcel ID's from Boston Tax Assessment records. Now by clicking on a particular building on the modern-day map, one can view the biographical data of who was living there in 1850.

Nathan Dane (1752-1835) was an important figure in the history of Beverly, MA, as well as in the emerging nation. Dane was a Massachusetts delegate to Congress during the time of the Articles of Confederation and was the architect of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.  He was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, a member of the Hartford Convention during the War of 1812, and a founder of the Massachusetts Temperance Society. He also wrote a set of law texts, the proceeds of which established the first endowed chair at Harvard Law School.

Eastman created a colonial gravestone research program called "Tiptoeing Through the Tombstones".  Students were given opportunities to research and analyze the evolution of New England gravestone symbols (such as ‘death heads’, ‘cherubs’, and ‘urn and willow’).  They studied inscriptions, borders, finials, and styles popular in New England from approximately 1680 to 1820. For each colonial cemetery they visited, students filled out seriation charts to document the rise and fall in prevalence of various gravestone styles and types of inscriptions.  Students considered whether and how these changes reflected shifts in Puritan religious beliefs.