Lewis H. Brown
Encyclopedia
Lewis Herold Brown was an industrialist.

Early life and career

Born in Creston, Iowa
Creston, Iowa
Creston is a city in and the county seat of Union County, Iowa, United States. The population was 7,597 at the 2000 census. McKinley Lake lies within a large, multi-purpose municipal park within the city limits, and three additional recreational lakes are located within seven miles of Creston:...

 on February 13, 1894, he attended the University of Iowa
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa is a public state-supported research university located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the oldest public university in the state. The university is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees...

 in 1915. Brown served in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 as an infantry captain during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. After the war, Brown was employed by Montgomery Ward
Montgomery Ward
Montgomery Ward is an online retailer that carries the same name as the former American department store chain, founded as the world's #1 mail order business in 1872 by Aaron Montgomery Ward, and which went out of business in 2001...

 and was promoted to Assistant General Operating Manager within eight years.

Johns Manville

T.F. Merseles, the President of Montgomery Ward, left in 1928 to become President of asbestos
Asbestos
Asbestos is a set of six naturally occurring silicate minerals used commercially for their desirable physical properties. They all have in common their eponymous, asbestiform habit: long, thin fibrous crystals...

 manufacturer Johns Manville, taking Brown with him. Merseles died suddenly in 1930 and Brown was appointed president at the age of 35. He thereby became the youngest man ever to hold that position in the company's history.

Brown was awarded the The Franklin Institute's Vermilye Medal in 1938. In April 1939, Brown was featured on the cover of Time Magazine, with the caption "Businessman Brown -- Public Relations Begins at Home."

A Report on Germany

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...

 Brown served as an advisor to General Levin H. Campbell, Jr.
Levin H. Campbell, Jr.
Levin Hicks Campbell, Jr. was a Lieutenant General in the United States Army. He was the Army's Chief of Ordnance from 1942 to 1946.The son of U.S. Court of Patent Appeals Judge Levin Hicks Campbell, Sr. , he was born on November 23, 1886 in Washington, D.C. He graduated from the U.S...

. After 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...

, at the request of General Lucius D. Clay
Lucius D. Clay
General Lucius Dubignon Clay was an American officer and military governor of the United States Army known for his administration of Germany immediately after World War II. Clay was deputy to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1945; deputy military governor, Germany 1946; commander in chief, U.S....

, Brown wrote a book entitled "A Report on Germany
A Report on Germany
After World War II, at the request of General Lucius D. Clay, Lewis H. Brown wrote A Report on Germany, which served as a detailed recommendation for the reconstruction of post-war Germany, and served as a basis for the Marshall Plan. General Clay selected Brown to write the report because of...

" (Farrar, Straus and Company, New York, 1947), which served as a detailed recommendation for the reconstruction of post-war Germany, and served as a basis for the Marshall Plan
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan was the large-scale American program to aid Europe where the United States gave monetary support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II in order to combat the spread of Soviet communism. The plan was in operation for four years beginning in April 1948...

.

Later life

Brown founded the American Enterprise Association
American Enterprise Institute
The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research is a conservative think tank founded in 1943. Its stated mission is "to defend the principles and improve the institutions of American freedom and democratic capitalism—limited government, private enterprise, individual liberty and...

 (AEA) in New York, a think tank which later moved to Washington, D.C., and was renamed the American Enterprise Institute. He served as AEA's chairman until his death. Brown also co-founded the Tax Foundation
Tax Foundation
The Tax Foundation is a Washington, D.C.-based think tank founded in 1937 that collects data and publishes research studies on tax policies at the federal and state levels. The organization is broken into three primary areas of research which are the Center for Federal Fiscal Policy, The and the...

 and served as chairman.

Brown died in 1951 at age 57, in Delray, Florida.

Controversy

In 1984, twenty-three years after Brown's death, Johns-Manville was alleged to have prioritized profits over the health and safety of employees during the time of his leadership. According to testimony given in a federal court by Charles H. Roemer, formerly an employee of Unarco, describing a meeting between Unarco officials, Lewis H. Brown and J-M attorney Vandiver Brown in the early 1940s, "I’ll never forget, I turned to Mr. Brown, one of the Browns made this crack (that Unarco managers were a bunch of fools for notifying employees who had asbestosis
Asbestosis
Asbestosis is a chronic inflammatory and fibrotic medical condition affecting the parenchymal tissue of the lungs caused by the inhalation and retention of asbestos fibers...

), and I said, ‘Mr. Brown, do you mean to tell me you would let them work until they dropped dead?’ He said, ‘Yes. We save a lot of money that way.'"

External links

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