- CA QUA01798
- Person
- 1900-1990
Newton Price Harcourt Brown was born in Toronto on May 30, 1900, the son of Newton Harcourt and Grace Amanda (Young) Brown. He was educated at the University of Toronto where he received his Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Modern Languages degree in 1925 and his Master of Arts degree in 1926. In 1934 he obtained the Doctor of Philosophy degree from Columbia University.
Professor Brown taught at Queen's University from 1926 to 1929, Brooklyn College, New York, 1930-1931 and the University of Rochester, 1931-1932. In 1934 to 1935 he was a Travelling Fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies. In 1935 he became Professor of French and Chairman of Romance Languages at Washington University, Saint Louis, where he remained for two years. . He then moved to chair the department at Brown University, Providence, R.I., where he taught until retiring in 1969.
He was author of Scientific Organizations in Seventeenth-Century France. His monograph in the scientific activities of the Academie de Caen, 1668-1674, was awarded the Prix Moulin of the Modern Academie Nationale des Sciences, Arts et Belles-Lettres of that city. In the same year he was named an honorary member of that body. The Government of France awarded him the Palmes academiques in 1946.
He was also author of Science and the Human Comedy and editor of The Army's Mister Brown: A family trilogy.
Professor Brown's eighteenth century Voltaire book collection was donated to the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto in 1980.
He was a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Also he was a member of the Modern Language Association of America, the Modern Humanities Research Foundation, the Society for French Studies, the American Association of Teachers of French, and the American Association of University Teachers.
Professor Brown had articles published in many academic periodicals and publications including University of Toronto Quarterly, Studies in the Renaissance, Studies on Voltaire and the 18th Century, Diogenes, Isis, Journal of Higher Education, Journal of the History of Ideas, Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Revue d'Historie de la literature francais, Bulletin de la Societe d'Histoire du Protestantisme francais, Daedalus, Rendiconti of Accademia Nazionale del Lincei and the Annals of Science.
In 1927 he married Dorothy Elizabeth Stacey, of Toronto. Their daughter, Jennifer Stacey Harcourt Brown, is professor emeritus of history, the University of Winnipeg, and resides in Denver, Colorado.
Professor Brown died in Winnipeg on November 17, 1990.