Millen Brand
Encyclopedia
Millen Brand was an American writer and poet. His novels Savage Sleep and The Outward Room, which addressed mental health institutions, were bestsellers in the 1960s and 1930s, respectively.

Career

Millen fled Pennsylvania Dutch Country
Pennsylvania Dutch Country
Pennsylvania Dutch Country refers to an area of southeastern Pennsylvania, United States that by the American Revolution had a high percentage of Pennsylvania Dutch inhabitants. Religiously, there was a large portion of Lutherans. There were also German Reformed, Moravian, Amish, Mennonite and...

 early in his life, but returned to the topic late in life, writing the text to accompany George Tice
George Tice
George Tice is an American photographer best known for his large-format black-and-white photographs of New Jersey. Tice was born in Newark, New Jersey, and self-trained as a photographer...

's photographs for Fields of Peace: A Pennsylvania German Album, and Local Lives (1975), a book of poems about the Pennsylvania Dutch
Pennsylvania Dutch
Pennsylvania Dutch refers to immigrants and their descendants from southwestern Germany and Switzerland who settled in Pennsylvania in the 17th and 18th centuries...

. He resided in Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...

 and on a small farm he owned in Bucks County, PA. He also taught writing at New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...

 and worked as a book editor for Crown Publishers.

He was nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing (Screenplay)
Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay
The Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay is one of the Academy Awards, the most prominent film awards in the United States. It is awarded each year to the writer of a screenplay adapted from another source...

 in 1948 for The Snake Pit
The Snake Pit
The Snake Pit is a 1948 American drama film directed by Anatole Litvak. The film tells the story of a woman who finds herself in an insane asylum and cannot remember how she got there, and stars Olivia de Havilland, Mark Stevens, Leo Genn, Celeste Holm, Beulah Bondi, and Lee Patrick.The film was...

(with Frank Partos
Frank Partos
Frank Partos an American screenwriter, of Hungarian Jewish origin, and an early executive committee member of the Screen Actors Guild, which he helped found.-Career:...

), an adaptation of Mary Jane Ward's novel, which also involved confinement in a mental health institution.

Millen was active in the civil rights
Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...

 movement. He was forced to testify before Senator Joseph McCarthy
Joseph McCarthy
Joseph Raymond "Joe" McCarthy was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957...

. He also authored Peace March: Nagasaki to Hiroshima. Buried in Concord, Massachusetts
Concord, Massachusetts
Concord is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the town population was 17,668. Although a small town, Concord is noted for its leading roles in American history and literature.-History:...

, his gravestone is just a few steps from those of Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century...

 and Thoreau.
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