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

academic An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...

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 stu ...

, writer,

translator Translation is the communication of the Meaning (linguistic), meaning of a #Source and target languages, source-language text by means of an Dynamic and formal equivalence, equivalent #Source and target languages, target-language text. The ...

and

Japanologist Japanese studies (Japanese: ) or Japan studies (sometimes 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 ...

. 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. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...

Early life, education, and personal life

Brown was born on November 20, 1909 in

Harrisonville, Missouri Harrisonville is a town in Cass County, Missouri, United States. The population was 10,121 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Cass County. It is part of the Kansas City metropolitan area. History Harrisonville was founded in 1837 up ...

and grew up in

Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City (abbreviated KC or KCMO) is the largest city in Missouri by population and area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090 in 2020, making it the 36th most-populous city in the United States. It is the central ...

. In 1925, he moved with his family to

Santa Ana, California Santa Ana () is the second most populous city and the county seat of Orange County, California. Located in the Greater Los Angeles region of Southern California, the city's population was 310,227 at the 2020 census, making Santa Ana the List of ...

. He attended

Santa Ana Junior College Santa Ana College is a public community college in Santa Ana, California. History In 1915, Santa Ana Junior College opened its doors to 25 students as a department of Santa Ana High School. It was the second community college founded in Orange ...

and then

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

, 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 Cities of Japan, city of Ishikawa Prefecture, 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 . Overview Cityscape ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. 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, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, 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 Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage o ...

. 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 A stroke is a medical condition in which poor blood flow to the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and hemorrhagic, due to bleeding. Both cause parts of the brain to stop functionin ...

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 of ...

in Japan from 1959 to 1960. In 1998, Brown started the process of establishing the

Japanese Historical Text Initiative Japanese Historical Text Initiative (JHTI) 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 at Berkeley. History Delmer M. Brow ...

(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. Honors * Japan Foundation: Special Prize, 1990. Location The headquarters of t ...

and Japan's

National Institute of Japanese Literature The , or NIJL, was established in May 1972. Its primary purpose is to preserve manuscripts and books relating to the study of Japanese literature. Original texts and microfilms Microforms are scaled-down reproductions of documents, typically ei ...

Selected works

In an overview of writings by and about Brown,

OCLC OCLC, Inc., doing business as OCLC, 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 ...

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 OCL ...

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, 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 classes, the lowest ...

, 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 centenarians Men centenarians University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science faculty Recipients of the Order of the Sacred Treasure Historians from California