Dee Brown (novelist)
Encyclopedia
Dorris Alexander "Dee" Brown (February 28, 1908 – December 12, 2002) was an American novelist and historian
.
His most famous work, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
(1970) details some of the violence and oppression suffered by Native Americans
at the hands of American
expansionism
.
, a sawmill town, Brown grew up in Ouachita County, Arkansas, which experienced an oil boom when he was thirteen. Brown's mother later relocated to Little Rock
so he and his brother and two sisters could attend a better high school. The public library became his second home. Reading the three-volume History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark helped him develop an abiding interest in the American West. He also discovered the works of Sherwood Anderson
and John Dos Passos
, and later William Faulkner
and Joseph Conrad
. He cited these authors as those most influential on his own work.
While attending home games by the Arkansas Travelers
baseball team, he became acquainted with Moses Yellowhorse, a pitcher. His kindness, and a childhood friendship with a Creek boy, caused Brown to reject the portrayals of Indian peoples as violent and backward, which dominated American popular culture at the time.
He worked as a printer
and reporter in Harrison, Arkansas
, and decided to continue his education at Arkansas State Teachers College in Conway, Arkansas
. His mentor, the history professor Dean D. McBrien, helped set him on the road to becoming a writer. They traveled west along with other students on two occasions in a Model T Ford. On campus Brown worked as editor of the student newspaper and held a student assistantship in the library. The latter convinced him that he should become a librarian
.
So, in the middle of the Great Depression
, he set out for George Washington University
in Washington, D.C. for graduate study. Brown worked part-time for J. Willard Marriott
, took classes, and married Sally Stroud (another graduate of Arkansas State Teachers College drawn to Washington by the New Deal
). Eventually he found a full-time position and became a librarian for the U.S. Department of Agriculture from 1934 to 1942. He lived at 1717 R Street NW, in the Dupont Circle
neighborhood.
Brown's first novel was a satire of New Deal bureaucracy, but it was not published due to the bombing of Pearl Harbor
. The publisher suggested "something patriotic" instead. He responded with Wave High the Banner, a fictionalized account of the life of Davy Crockett
(who was an acquaintance of his great-grandfather). A few months after its publication, he was drafted into the U.S. Army where he met Martin Schmitt; after the war they collaborated on several works.
During the war, Brown worked for the United States Department of War
as a librarian and never went overseas.
From 1948 to 1972, he was an agriculture
librarian at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
, where he had gained a master's degree
in library science
, became a professor
, and raised a son, Mitchell, and daughter, Linda with his wife Sally.
As a part-time writer, he published nine books, three fiction and six nonfiction, by the end of the 1950s. During the 1960s, he completed eight more including The Galvanized Yankees, which Brown described as requiring more research than any of his other books, and The Year of the Century: 1876, which he described as his personal favorite.
In 1971 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
became a best-seller. Many readers assumed that Brown was of Indian heritage but he was not. He did come from a family with deep history on the frontier
.
In 1973, Brown and his wife retired in Little Rock, Arkansas
, where he devoted his time to writing. His later works include Creek Mary's Blood, a novel telling of several generations of a family descended from one Creek woman, and Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow, which described the chicanery and romance surrounding the construction of the western railroads. His last book-length work, Way To Bright Star is a picaresque novel
set during the Civil War. He never completed its sequel, which was to feature P. T. Barnum
and Abraham Lincoln
.
Brown died at the age of 94 in Little Rock. His remains are interred in Urbana, Illinois
, along with those of his wife Sally Stroud.
Novels
Other
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
.
His most famous work, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by American writer Dee Brown is a history of Native Americans in the American West in the late nineteenth century. He describes the people's displacement through forced relocations and years of warfare waged by the United States federal government...
(1970) details some of the violence and oppression suffered by Native Americans
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
at the hands of American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
expansionism
Expansionism
In general, expansionism consists of expansionist policies of governments and states. While some have linked the term to promoting economic growth , more commonly expansionism refers to the doctrine of a state expanding its territorial base usually, though not necessarily, by means of military...
.
Life
Born in Alberta, LouisianaLouisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
, a sawmill town, Brown grew up in Ouachita County, Arkansas, which experienced an oil boom when he was thirteen. Brown's mother later relocated to Little Rock
Little Rock, Arkansas
Little Rock is the capital and the largest city of the U.S. state of Arkansas. The Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 699,757 people in the 2010 census...
so he and his brother and two sisters could attend a better high school. The public library became his second home. Reading the three-volume History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark helped him develop an abiding interest in the American West. He also discovered the works of Sherwood Anderson
Sherwood Anderson
Sherwood Anderson was an American novelist and short story writer. His most enduring work is the short story sequence Winesburg, Ohio. Writers he has influenced include Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, J. D. Salinger, and Amos Oz.-Early life:Anderson was born in Clyde, Ohio,...
and John Dos Passos
John Dos Passos
John Roderigo Dos Passos was an American novelist and artist.-Early life:Born in Chicago, Illinois, Dos Passos was the illegitimate son of John Randolph Dos Passos , a distinguished lawyer of Madeiran Portuguese descent, and Lucy Addison Sprigg Madison of Petersburg, Virginia. The elder Dos Passos...
, and later William Faulkner
William Faulkner
William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner worked in a variety of media; he wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays during his career...
and Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad was a Polish-born English novelist.Conrad is regarded as one of the great novelists in English, although he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties...
. He cited these authors as those most influential on his own work.
While attending home games by the Arkansas Travelers
Arkansas Travelers
The Arkansas Travelers, also known informally as The Travs, are a Minor League Baseball team based in Little Rock, Arkansas. The team, which plays in the Texas League, is the Double-A affiliate of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim Major League club....
baseball team, he became acquainted with Moses Yellowhorse, a pitcher. His kindness, and a childhood friendship with a Creek boy, caused Brown to reject the portrayals of Indian peoples as violent and backward, which dominated American popular culture at the time.
He worked as a printer
Printer (publisher)
In publishing, printers are both companies providing printing services and individuals who directly operate printing presses. With the invention of the moveable type printing press by Johannes Gutenberg around 1450, printing—and printers—proliferated throughout Europe.Today, printers are found...
and reporter in Harrison, Arkansas
Harrison, Arkansas
Harrison is a city in Boone County, Arkansas, United States. It is the county seat. According to 2007 Census Bureau estimates, the population of the city was 13,108. Boone County was organized in 1869, during reconstruction after the civil war. Harrison was platted and made the county seat. It is...
, and decided to continue his education at Arkansas State Teachers College in Conway, Arkansas
Conway, Arkansas
Conway is the county seat of Faulkner County, Arkansas, United States. The population was 58,908 at the 2010 census, making Conway the seventh most populous city in Arkansas. It is a principal city of the Little Rock–North Little Rock–Conway Metropolitan Statistical Area which had...
. His mentor, the history professor Dean D. McBrien, helped set him on the road to becoming a writer. They traveled west along with other students on two occasions in a Model T Ford. On campus Brown worked as editor of the student newspaper and held a student assistantship in the library. The latter convinced him that he should become a librarian
Librarian
A librarian is an information professional trained in library and information science, which is the organization and management of information services or materials for those with information needs...
.
So, in the middle of the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, he set out for George Washington University
George Washington University
The George Washington University is a private, coeducational comprehensive university located in Washington, D.C. in the United States...
in Washington, D.C. for graduate study. Brown worked part-time for J. Willard Marriott
J. Willard Marriott
John Willard Marriott was an American entrepreneur and businessman. He was the founder of the Marriott Corporation , the parent company of one of the world's largest hospitality, hotel chains, and food services companies. The Marriott company rose from a small root beer stand in Washington D.C...
, took classes, and married Sally Stroud (another graduate of Arkansas State Teachers College drawn to Washington by the New Deal
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...
). Eventually he found a full-time position and became a librarian for the U.S. Department of Agriculture from 1934 to 1942. He lived at 1717 R Street NW, in the Dupont Circle
Dupont Circle
Dupont Circle is a traffic circle, park, neighborhood, and historic district in Northwest Washington, D.C. The traffic circle is located at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue NW, Connecticut Avenue NW, New Hampshire Avenue NW, P Street NW, and 19th Street NW...
neighborhood.
Brown's first novel was a satire of New Deal bureaucracy, but it was not published due to the bombing of Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor, known to Hawaiians as Puuloa, is a lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet...
. The publisher suggested "something patriotic" instead. He responded with Wave High the Banner, a fictionalized account of the life of Davy Crockett
Davy Crockett
David "Davy" Crockett was a celebrated 19th century American folk hero, frontiersman, soldier and politician. He is commonly referred to in popular culture by the epithet "King of the Wild Frontier". He represented Tennessee in the U.S...
(who was an acquaintance of his great-grandfather). A few months after its publication, he was drafted into the U.S. Army where he met Martin Schmitt; after the war they collaborated on several works.
During the war, Brown worked for the United States Department of War
United States Department of War
The United States Department of War, also called the War Department , was the United States Cabinet department originally responsible for the operation and maintenance of the United States Army...
as a librarian and never went overseas.
From 1948 to 1972, he was an agriculture
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
librarian at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...
, where he had gained a master's degree
Master's degree
A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...
in library science
Library science
Library science is an interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary field that applies the practices, perspectives, and tools of management, information technology, education, and other areas to libraries; the collection, organization, preservation, and dissemination of information resources; and the...
, became a professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
, and raised a son, Mitchell, and daughter, Linda with his wife Sally.
As a part-time writer, he published nine books, three fiction and six nonfiction, by the end of the 1950s. During the 1960s, he completed eight more including The Galvanized Yankees, which Brown described as requiring more research than any of his other books, and The Year of the Century: 1876, which he described as his personal favorite.
In 1971 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by American writer Dee Brown is a history of Native Americans in the American West in the late nineteenth century. He describes the people's displacement through forced relocations and years of warfare waged by the United States federal government...
became a best-seller. Many readers assumed that Brown was of Indian heritage but he was not. He did come from a family with deep history on the frontier
Frontier
A frontier is a political and geographical term referring to areas near or beyond a boundary. 'Frontier' was absorbed into English from French in the 15th century, with the meaning "borderland"--the region of a country that fronts on another country .The use of "frontier" to mean "a region at the...
.
In 1973, Brown and his wife retired in Little Rock, Arkansas
Little Rock, Arkansas
Little Rock is the capital and the largest city of the U.S. state of Arkansas. The Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 699,757 people in the 2010 census...
, where he devoted his time to writing. His later works include Creek Mary's Blood, a novel telling of several generations of a family descended from one Creek woman, and Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow, which described the chicanery and romance surrounding the construction of the western railroads. His last book-length work, Way To Bright Star is a picaresque novel
Picaresque novel
The picaresque novel is a popular sub-genre of prose fiction which is usually satirical and depicts, in realistic and often humorous detail, the adventures of a roguish hero of low social class who lives by his wits in a corrupt society...
set during the Civil War. He never completed its sequel, which was to feature P. T. Barnum
P. T. Barnum
Phineas Taylor Barnum was an American showman, businessman, scam artist and entertainer, remembered for promoting celebrated hoaxes and for founding the circus that became the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus....
and Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
.
Brown died at the age of 94 in Little Rock. His remains are interred in Urbana, Illinois
Urbana, Illinois
Urbana is the county seat of Champaign County, Illinois, United States. As of the 2010 census, the population was 41,250. Urbana is the tenth-most populous city in Illinois outside of the Chicago metropolitan area....
, along with those of his wife Sally Stroud.
Legacy and honors
- The Central Arkansas Library System named a branch library in Little Rock, ArkansasLittle Rock, ArkansasLittle Rock is the capital and the largest city of the U.S. state of Arkansas. The Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 699,757 people in the 2010 census...
for him.
Partial bibliography
Histories- Fighting Indians of the West (1948) with Martin F. Schmitt
- Trail Driving Days (1952) with Martin F. Schmitt
- Grierson's Raid (1954) Describes a Union foray into Confederate territoryGrierson's RaidGrierson's Raid was a Union cavalry raid during the Vicksburg Campaign of the American Civil War. It ran from April 17 to May 2, 1863, as a diversion from Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's main attack plan on Vicksburg, Mississippi....
- Settlers' West (1955) with Martin F. Schmitt
- The Gentle Tamers: Women of the Old Wild West (1958)
- The Bold Cavaliers: Morgan's Second Kentucky Cavalry Raiders (1959) Republished as Morgan's Raiders (1995). Describes John Hunt MorganJohn Hunt MorganJohn Hunt Morgan was a Confederate general and cavalry officer in the American Civil War.Morgan is best known for Morgan's Raid when, in 1863, he and his men rode over 1,000 miles covering a region from Tennessee, up through Kentucky, into Indiana and on to southern Ohio...
's Civil War activities. - The Galvanized Yankees (1963) Republished (1986)
- Showdown at Little Big Horn (1964) For young people
- The Year of the Century: 1876 (1966)
- Bury My Heart at Wounded KneeBury My Heart at Wounded KneeBury My Heart at Wounded Knee by American writer Dee Brown is a history of Native Americans in the American West in the late nineteenth century. He describes the people's displacement through forced relocations and years of warfare waged by the United States federal government...
(1970) - Fort Phil Kearny: An American Saga (1971) Republished as The Fetterman Massacre (1974)
- Andrew Jackson and the Battle of New Orleans (1972)
- The Westerners (1974)
- Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow (1977)—about the Union Pacific RailroadUnion Pacific RailroadThe Union Pacific Railroad , headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, is the largest railroad network in the United States. James R. Young is president, CEO and Chairman....
- Wondrous Times on the Frontier (1991)
- The American West (1994) Collected excerpts from earlier books co-authored by Schmitt
- Great Documents in American Indian History (1995)
Novels
- Wave High The Banner (1942)
- Yellowhorse (1956)
- Cavalry Scout (1958)
- They Went Thataway (1960) republished as Pardon My Pandemonium (1984)
- The Girl from Fort Wicked (1964)
- Action at Beecher Island (1967)
- Creek Mary’s Blood (1980)
- Killdeer Mountain (1983)
- Conspiracy of Knaves (1986) A Civil War historical saga and spy thriller
- Way To Bright Star (1998)
Other
- Tales of the Warrior Ants (1973) For young people
- American Spa: Hot Springs, Arkansas (1982) An illustrated history
- Dee Brown's Folktales of the Native American: Retold for Our Times (1993) Originally published as Teepee Tales (1979)
- When the Century Was Young (1993) Memories of growing up in 1920s & 1930s
- Images of the Old West (1996)
Other sources
- Washington Post Saturday, December 14, 2002
- The Economist, December 21, 2002
- Contemporary Authors, Autobiography Series, Adele Sarkissian, ed. Vol. 6. Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1988: 45–59.