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Brown (Bob) papers
LSC.0723
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Contributing Institution:
UCLA Library Special Collections
Title: Bob Brown papers
Creator:
Brown, Bob
Identifier/Call Number: LSC.0723
Physical Description:
45.2 linear feet
(112 boxes and 1 flat box)
Date (inclusive): 1844-1960
Abstract: Bob Brown (1886-1959) was a writer, editor, publisher, and traveler. The collection consists of personal papers, manuscripts
(including examples of Brown's visual/conceptual writings), publications, correspondence, photographs, cookbooks and other
gastronomic-related items, clippings, and miscellaneous ephemera.
Physical Location: Stored off-site. All requests to access special collections material must be made in advance using the request button located
on this page.
Language of Material: Materials are in English.
Open for research. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located
on this page.
Restrictions on Use and Reproduction
Property rights to the physical objects belong to UCLA Library Special Collections. All other rights, including copyright,
are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright
and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.
Provenance/Source of Acquisition
Gift of Eleanor Parker Brown, 1961.
UCLA Catalog Record ID:
9942304203606533
[Identification of item], Bob Brown Papers (Collection Number 723). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research
Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
Partially processed by Simon Elliott, 2002. Completed by Nathan Brown with assistance from Elizabeth Sheehan, in the Center
for Primary Research and Training (CFPRT), Winter 2007.
Collections are processed to a variety of levels depending on the work necessary to make them usable, their perceived user
interest and research value, availability of staff and resources, and competing priorities. Library Special Collections provides
a standard level of preservation and access for all collections and, when time and resources permit, conducts more intensive
processing. These materials have been arranged and described according to national and local standards and best practices.
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Robert Carlton Brown (1886-1959) was a writer, editor, publisher, and traveler. From 1908 to 1917, he wrote poetry and prose
for numerous magazines and newspapers in New York City, publishing two pulp novels,
What Happened to Mary and
The Remarkable Adventures of Christopher Poe (1913), and one volume of poetry,
My Marjonary (1916).
During 1918, he traveled extensively in Mexico and Central America, writing for the U.S. Committee of Public Information in
Santiago de Chile. In 1919, he moved with his wife, Rose Brown, to Rio de Janeiro, where they founded Brazilian American,
a weekly magazine that ran until 1929. With Brown's mother, Cora, the Browns also established magazines in Mexico City and
London:
Mexican American (1924-1929) and
British American (1926-1929).
Following the stock market crash of 1929, the Browns retired from publishing and traveled through Asia and Europe, settling
in France from 1929-1933. Brown became involved in the expatriate literary community in Paris, publishing several volumes
of poetry, including
Globe Gliding (1930),
Gems (1931),
Words (1931), and
Demonics (1931), as well as
1450-1950 (1929), a book of visual poetry. While in France, Brown also made plans toward, and wrote a manifesto for, the development
of a "reading machine" involving the magnified projection of miniaturized type printed on movable spools of tape. Arguing
that such a device would enable literature to compete with cinema in a visual age, Brown published a book of "Readies"---poems
by Gertrude Stein, Fillipo Marinetti, William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound, and others, typeset in a manner appropriate to
operation of his projected reading machine. Although Brown's reading machine was never developed, his papers include letters
and papers pertaining to its projected design and technical specifications, as well as a collection of his own published and
unpublished visual and conceptual writing.
In 1933, Brown returned to New York. In the 1930s, he wrote a series of international cookbooks in collaboration with Rose
and Cora Brown. He also lived in cooperative colonies in Arkansas and Louisiana, visited the USSR, and wrote a book,
Can We Co-Operate (1940), regarding the parameters of a viable American socialism. In 1941, he and Rose returned to South America. While traveling
down the Amazon they amassed a substantial collection of art and cultural artifacts and collaborated on a book,
Amazing Amazon (1942). The Browns eventually reestablished residence in Rio de Janeiro, where they lived until Rose Brown's death in 1952.
Following his wife's death, Bob Brown returned to New York, where he married Eleanor Parker in 1953. Brown continued to write
and ran a shop called Bob Brown's Books in Greenwich Village until his death in 1959. Shortly after Brown's death, a new edition
of 1450-1950 was published by Jonathan Williams's Jargon/Corinth Press.
This collection documents the activities of Bob Brown (1886-1959)--writer, editor, publisher, and traveler. The collection
documents various aspects of his personal and professional life and consists of personal papers, manuscripts (including examples
of Brown's visual/conceptual writings), publications, correspondence, photographs, cookbooks and other gastronomic-related
items, clippings, and miscellaneous ephemera.
Portions of this collection have been digitized and are available online:
Bob Brown papers (22 items).
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Publishers and publishing -- Archives.
Authors, American -- 20th century -- Archives.
Brown, Bob, 1886-1959--Archives.