Delmer Myers Brown (November 20, 1909November 9, 2011) was an American

academic An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...

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 species; as well as the ...

, writer,

translator Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''trans ...

and

Japanologist , sometimes known as Japanology in Europe, is a sub-field of area studies or East Asian studies involved in social sciences and humanities research on Japan. It incorporates fields such as the study of Japanese language, History of Japan, history, ...

. He was a professor of Japanese history at the

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkele ...

Early life, education, and personal life

Brown was born on November 20, 1909, in

Harrisonville, Missouri Harrisonville is a city in Cass County, Missouri, Cass County, Missouri, United States. The population was 10,121 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is the county seat of Cass County. It is part of the Kansas City metropolitan ar ...

, and grew up in

Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City, Missouri, abbreviated KC or KCMO, is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri by List of cities in Missouri, population and area. The city lies within Jackson County, Missouri, Jackson, Clay County, Missouri, Clay, and Pl ...

. In 1925, he moved with his family to

Santa Ana, California Santa Ana (Spanish language, Spanish for ) is a city in and the county seat of Orange County, California, United States. Located in the Greater Los Angeles region of Southern California, the city's population was 310,227 at the 2020 census. As ...

. He attended Santa Ana Junior College and then

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

, where he graduated with a degree in history in 1932. Instead of going to law school, as originally planned, Brown took a position teaching English at a prestigious Japanese Imperial "Higher School" in

Kanazawa, Ishikawa is the capital of Ishikawa Prefecture in central Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 466,029 in 203,271 households, and a population density of 990 persons per km2. The total area of the city was . Etymology The name "Kanazawa" ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. It was there that he met and married Mary Nelson Logan in 1934. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, Brown served as an intelligence officer in the

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest displacement, at 4.5 million tons in 2021. It has the world's largest aircraft ...

. Brown earned his Ph.D. in Japanese history from Stanford in 1946. "Dr. Delmer Brown Receives Medal from Japanese Government,"
''Nichibei News'', April 29, 1997; retrieved 2013-08-22. In 1987, Mary died after 53 years of marriage. Brown was widowed twice more; by Margaret Young Brown in 2003 and Louise K. Weamer in 2010. He is survived by his companion Pauline Howland, two sisters, a son and three step-children, two granddaughters, and six great-grandchildren. Brown died on November 9, 2011, following a

stroke Stroke is a medical condition in which poor cerebral circulation, blood flow to a part of the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: brain ischemia, ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and intracranial hemorrhage, hemor ...

Career

From 1946 to 1977, Brown was a member of the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley. He was chairman of the history department from 1957 to 1961 and 1971 to 1975. Brown was awarded a

Fulbright Scholarship The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States cultural exchange programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people ...

in Japan from 1959 to 1960. In 1998, Brown started the process of establishing the Japanese Historical Text Initiative (JHTI), which is a searchable online database of Japanese historical documents and English translations. It is part of the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. The development of JHTI involved negotiations with the

University of Tokyo Press The is a university press affiliated with the University of Tokyo in Japan. It was founded in 1951, following the post-World War II reorganization of the university. The press is currently a member of the Association of University Presses. H ...

and Japan's National Institute of Japanese Literature.

Selected works

In an overview of writings by and about Brown,

OCLC OCLC, Inc. See also: is an American nonprofit cooperative organization "that provides shared technology services, original research, and community programs for its membership and the library community at large". It was founded in 1967 as the ...

WorldCat WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the O ...

lists roughly 40+ works in 80+ publications in 4 languages and 1,500+ library holdings. * ''Nationalism in Japan: An Introductory Historical Analysis,'' 1955 * ''Japan,'' 1967 * ''The future and the Past: A Translation and Study of the Gukanshō, an Interpretative History of Japan Written in 1219 by Jien,'' 1979 * ''Chronology of Japan'' = 日本の歴史, 1987 * ''An Introduction to Advanced Spoken Japanese,'' 1987 * ''The Cambridge History of Japan,'' Vol. 1, ''Ancient Japan ,'' 1993

Honors

Order of the Sacred Treasure The is a Japanese Order (distinction), order, established on 4 January 1888 by Emperor Meiji as the Order of Meiji. Originally awarded in eight classes (from 8th to 1st, in ascending order of importance), since 2003 it has been awarded in six c ...

, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon (Japan)"Delmer Brown honored" at HNet.com
retrieved 2012-08-22.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brown, Delmer 1909 births 2011 deaths People from Harrisonville, Missouri Historians from Missouri American Japanologists American men centenarians University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science faculty Recipients of the Order of the Sacred Treasure Historians from California