John Mason Brown
{{Short description|American drama critic and author}}
{{Other people|John Brown}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2024}}
{{Infobox writer
| image = Portret van John Mason Brown 1930 barcode 910000105015.jpg
| name = John Mason Brown
| birth_date = {{birth date|1900|7|3}}
| death_date = {{death date and age|1969|3|16|1900|7|3}}
| birth_place = Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.
| death_place = New York, New York, U.S.
| occupation = Columnist, journalist
| genre = Drama criticism
| notableworks = "Seeing Things" column
| influences =
| influenced =
| education = Harvard University
}}
John Mason Brown (July 3, 1900 – March 16, 1969) was an American drama critic and author.Van Gelder, Lawrence (March 17, 1969). "John Mason Brown, Critic, Dead." The New York Times
Life
Born in Louisville, Kentucky, he graduated from Harvard College in 1923. In 1925, Brown became a theatre critic for Theatre Arts magazine. He then worked for the New York Evening Post from 1929 to 1941 and briefly (1941) for the World-Telegram. He served as a lieutenant in the United States Navy during World War II, beginning in 1942. His book, To All Hands, documents his activities aboard the USS Ancon (AGC-4) during Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily.{{Cite book|last=Krempel|first=Daniel S.|title=Brown, John Mason, Jr. (1900-1969), critic, author, and lecturer|date=February 1, 2000|publisher=Oxford University Press|volume=1|language=en|doi=10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.1800155}}
Upon his return, his "Seeing Things" column appeared in The Saturday Review starting in 1944 until his death. In a 1948 radio broadcast, Brown attacked comic books as "the marijuana of the nursery; the bane of the bassinet; the horror of the house; the curse of the kids; and a threat to the future."Thompson, Maggie. "April 21, 1954: Mr. Gaines Goes to Washington," [http://www.cbgxtra.com/default.aspx?tabid=42&view=topic&forumid=34&postid=6606 "The 1900s: 10 biggest events from 100 years in comics,"] CBGXtra.com (December 12, 2005). {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071026061211/http://www.cbgxtra.com/default.aspx?tabid=42&view=topic&forumid=34&postid=6606 |date=October 26, 2007 }} (These charges were echoed during this period by other public figures like Sterling North, J. Edgar Hoover, and most notably Dr. Fredric Wertham, until Congressional hearings led to the mid-1950s self-censorship and rapid shrinkage of the comics industry.)
Brown resigned from the Pulitzer Prize drama jury in 1963 when the advisory board rejected his recommendation, and that of theater historian John Gassner, that the prize go to Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?.Van Gelder, Lawrence, "John Mason Brown, Critic, Dead"; The New York Times, March 17, 1969
He died in New York City. He was inducted, posthumously, into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1981.[https://www.nytimes.com/1981/03/03/theater/26-elected-theater-hall-fame-26-broadway-voted-into-theater-hall-fame.html The New York Times, March 3, 1981 - 26 Elected to the Theater Hall of Fame]
See also
- 45th Regiment Kentucky Volunteer Mounted Infantry, the regiment Brown's grandfather commanded during the American Civil War
References
{{Reflist}}
Further reading
- {{cite journal |last=Brown |first=Preston |title=John Mason Brown, 1837-1890 |journal=Filson Club History Quarterly |volume=13 |issue=3 |date=July 1939 |url=http://connect1.ajaxdocumentviewer.com/viewerajax.php?TTc26klfr1%2B0N3jXyfi%2BW2qOGMyO70WtFmQirw6bmAn%2Bz%2FRm1eHUNrPdNxoi9EukMvVATRff89eu6%2FUmF7NISTbLd9AhLXgR%2Fb%2BZXQ1YrPDwQzh2%2BNNeiNf5u9mZvmx5pujHE1iEzDEIAIUQbqyNaFx9Bq%2BeXezJe9DMfgzeT%2B64tTOQV9P2vymsQyOXJafP8S6HKHHhfQLmsothAgRAGSFA5Qsvf6pFcvTlAL6t3LIseURC77GycysmP%2FnOU9Q6rtjWJ17YrYYCdB%2BlOSvMKVCMuK7vxKOteA04qMNV0AGQ6EnvfK1H7UQcRtID%2BFzxAtSf6NvJk3w3D6TUx3ffWgC%2BacNL0BKXRj%2BSxAaX220Rbh6SWogFdirji%2FUaJv4loUv7hzsYnLvxJm1pMl6pdyF0%2FnOyCnnDKpEHsTV5xck%3D |accessdate=November 30, 2011}}
External links
- {{IMDb name|0113897}}
- [http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~hou00655 John Mason Brown Papers (MS Am 1948-1948.1).] Houghton Library, Harvard University.
- [http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~hou00097 John Mason Brown Additional Papers, 1933-1984 (MS Am 2096).] Houghton Library, Harvard University.
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brown, John Mason}}
Category:Harvard College alumni
Category:American theater critics
Category:Writers from Louisville, Kentucky
Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers
Category:Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters