Tarleton Hoffman Bean was born on October 8, 1846, in Bainbridge, Pennsylvania.

He was an American ichthyologist, educator, and author. In 1883, he was awarded an M.Sc. degree from Indiana University. In addition to his work in ichthyology, he was a forester, a fish culturist, a conservationist, an editor, an administrator, and an exhibitor. His focus on ichthyology began in the summer of 1874 when he worked as a volunteer at the Fish Commission laboratory in Noank, Connecticut. There, he first met Spencer F. Baird, an American naturalist, and ichthyologist. Bean spent the next two decades in Washington working for the National Museum and the Fish Commission. From 1895 to 1898 he was the first Director of the New York Aquarium. He spent most of the next eight years working on the fisheries and forestry exhibits at the world's fairs in Paris (1900) and St. Louis (1904). In 1906, he became New York’s state fish culturist, a position he held until his death in 1916 following an automobile accident. He was the bearer of the Royal Imperial Order of the Red Eagle, conferred by the Emperor of Prussia Wilhelm II.

He died on December 28, 1916, in Albany, New York.