John Mason Brown
Encyclopedia
John Mason Brown was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 drama critic and author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

.

Born in Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...

, he graduated from Harvard College
Harvard College
Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of two schools within Harvard University granting undergraduate degrees...

 in 1923. He worked for the New York Evening Post from 1929 to 1941. He served as a lieutenant in the United States Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

 during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, beginning in 1942. His book, To All Hands, documents his activities aboard the USS Ancon (AGC-4)
USS Ancon (AGC-4)
USS Ancon was an ocean liner acquired by the United States Navy during World War II and converted to a combined headquarters and communications command ship.-Early civilian service:...

 during Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily.

Upon his return, his "Seeing Things" column appeared in The Saturday Review starting in 1944 until his death in New York City. In a 1948 radio broadcast, Brown attacked comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...

s as "the marijuana of the nursery; the bane of the bassinet; the horror of the house; the curse of the kids; and a threat to the future." (These charges were echoed during this period by other public figures like Sterling North
Sterling North
Thomas Sterling North was an American author of books for children and adults, including 1963's bestselling Rascal. North, who professionally went by "Sterling North", was born on the second floor of a farmhouse on the shores of Lake Koshkonong, a few miles from Edgerton, Wisconsin, in 1906, and...

, J. Edgar Hoover
J. Edgar Hoover
John Edgar Hoover was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States. Appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation—predecessor to the FBI—in 1924, he was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972...

, and most notably Dr. Fredric Wertham
Fredric Wertham
Fredric Wertham was a Jewish German-American psychiatrist and crusading author who protested the purportedly harmful effects of violent imagery in mass media and comic books on the development of children. His best-known book was Seduction of the Innocent , which purported that comic books are...

, until Congressional hearings led to the mid-1950s self-censorship and rapid shrinkage of the comics industry.)

Brown resigned from the Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...

 drama jury in 1963 when the advisory board rejected his recommendation, and that of theater historian John Gassner, that the prize go to Edward Albee
Edward Albee
Edward Franklin Albee III is an American playwright who is best known for The Zoo Story , The Sandbox , Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? , and a rewrite of the screenplay for the unsuccessful musical version of Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's . His works are considered well-crafted, often...

's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

He was inducted, posthumously, into the American Theatre Hall of Fame
American Theatre Hall of Fame
The American Theatre Hall of Fame in New York City was founded in 1972. Earl Blackwell was the first head of the Executive Committee. In an announcement at a luncheon meeting on March 1972, he said that the new Theater Hall of Fame would be located in the Uris Theatre . James M...

 in 1981.

External links

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