Herbert Ross Brown papers

Collection

Identifier: M022

Staff Only
Please use the Collection Organization section below to place requests.

Scope and Content

The collection includes Herbert Ross Brown's personal correspondence, mostly with his wife, Ruth, and friends and colleagues, especially Wilmot Brookings Mitchell and Kenneth Sills. Also includes speeches by Brown, including Bowdoin "chapel talks" and speeches addressed to alumni groups; lecture notes and other Bowdoin teaching and class materials; research notes and articles; materials concerning Brown's book Sills of Bowdoin; and other personal items such as planning calendars, a diary, diplomas, and photographs of family and friends.

Dates

Creation: 1900-1991, undated

Creator

Brown, Herbert Ross, 1902-1988 (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

Some material restricted. Consult series descriptions for specific information.

Biographical / Historical

Herbert Ross Brown was born February 9, 1902, in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He received a Bachelor of Science from Lafayette College in 1924, a Master of Arts from Harvard University in 1928, a Ph.D. from Columbia in 1939, and a number of honorary degrees, including a Doctor of Letters from Bowdoin in 1963. Brown was a professor of English at Bowdoin College from 1925-1972 and a visiting professor of English at Duke University (1939), Columbia University (1940, 1941, 1945), Minnesota (1947, 1963), Harvard University (1968), and Bread Loaf School of Middlebury (1948-1956). He is the author of Bowdoin and the Common Good (1952), Sills of Bowdoin (1964), and several scholarly monographs. Brown edited numerous publications and was the managing editor of The New England Quarterly. He received many prestigious awards for his literary work and teaching of English.

In 1929 Brown married Ruth D. Raker, who died in 1976. Brown died July 26, 1988, in Brunswick at the age of 86.